Mutual Feelings
by x.Mrs.ItachiUchiha.x
Summary: Gaara x OC(1), Sasuke x OC(2), Neji x OC(3). What happens when an all female team takes on the Chunin exams, when one of them has something to hide?
1. Land of The Amazons

**Chapter 1 – Land of the Amazons**

The sun was high in the Land of The Amazons, blazing angrily down at the dark-bending people of its city. The inhabitants of The Amazon tribe were all females, due to their ancestors passionate hate for men and their ways. The only time men were allowed into the village was to mate, and take the male children away to an adoption family.

The tribe lived amongst the trees, their city not being as big as the likes of Suna or Konaha, and they went through lives living and working on the forest floor and up in tree house-like structures high in the canopy. Any men, who snuck in themselves, were killed on sight unless carrying an important document. Any men aided in sneaking in, were killed and the women were banished.

Mia Thermador, a 13 year old genin of the Amazon tribe, sat under a weeping willow with her two teammates, Lara and Santana. They were currently glancing over their ID cards for the chunin exams in Konaha, they read:

NAME: Mia Thermador

AGE: 13

D.O.B: 13/4/1998

PLACE OF ORIGIN: Land of The Amazons

RANK: Genin

TEAMMATES: Lara Yamanaka, Santana Dean

SENSEI: Leah Davidson

NAME: Lara Yamanaka

AGE: 12

D.O.B: 21/7/1998

PLACE OF ORIGIN: Land of The Amazons

RANK: Genin

TEAMMATES: Santana Dean, Mia Thermador

SENSEI: Leah Davidson

NAME: Santana Dean

AGE: 13

D.O.B: 5/2/1998

PLACE OF ORIGIN: Land of the Amazons

RANK: Genin

TEAMMATES: Mia Thermador, Lara Yamanaka

SENSEI: Leah Davidson

"So we have to carry these around, what if they get stolen?" Lara frowned picking at the edge of her card. Mia just glanced up to the sky, observing the birds that flew effortlessly through the air, she wished that she could fly like them, like would become so much easier.

"Even worse, boys will be there. They always assume that just because we're women, we stand no chance at doing anything" Santana scoffed and lay back against the trunk of the tree. "We'll show them what real power is" Mia deciding to join the conversation pushed herself up so she was sitting, facing the pair.

"Yes, but remember there shall be no fatally injuring them, unless we have a valid reason. Also don't forget to hold back, or there won't be a place to hold the exams" they all laughed and relished in the fact that they standing a great chance in the Chunin exams.

Lara was of average height standing at 5'6, she had blonde hair that reached just under her shoulders and was layered, she had deep chocolate eyes and a curvy form and her skin was sun-kissed.

Santana was very slim with quite a big chest, she stood at 5'5 with chess-nut hair that reached just under her shoulder blades, she usually wore it in a high ponytail or a messy bun. She had light freckles, that covered most of her face, giving her an interesting look. Her eyes were a dull blue, almost grey

Mia was the tallest at 5'7, and had an athletic but feminine form. Her hair reached a centimetre above her shoulders and was black, with one white streak in her side fringe. Her skin was pale, and her thick black eyelashes framed her amber eyes.

Their clumsy Sensei then decided to make her appearance, her blue hair tied back into a high ponytail. She grinned at them and motioned for them to follow, the trio did as told and grabbed their luggage, following swiftly after their teacher.

The soon came to the gates to their city, their journey was about to begin.

"Girls, I am not able to accompany you down to Konaha, but I will meet up with you before the first exam. Do your best!" with that Leah disappeared into a puff of smoke, leaving the three teens to gather up some adrenaline and race off towards their neighbouring city.

The first few hours were quiet and went by like the breeze, giving Mia some time to think over her situation. Mia was very unique, she was not born into the Land of The Amazons, but dropped off there by a mysterious woman who fled shortly after.

Unlike most other ninja, Mia could not use jutsu, instead she could bend elements to her will, not only that but darkness also aided her wherever she went, she was its host. At the tender age of 6, she was bitten by a wolf, its venom going straight to her heart, meaning that she could shift into her wolf form at any point but became blood-thirsty on full moons.

They had just had a full moon and Konaha was not due one for the most part of the exams, except for the night of the last stage, if she made it that far, not that it would be difficult with the evil power that the darkness could supply to her.

The sun was setting over the hills, but the trio did not feel the need to make camp, they didn't want to risk any rouge ninja wandering around picking off the future Chunin. "I always loved the sunset" Santana smiled to herself, whilst the other two girls stared down at the bustling city that was their destination, Konahagakure.

"Let's take it easy, all that running's making me hungry" Lara rubbed her stomach, frowned playfully as the other girls giggled at her priorities. They sauntered down to the front gates, noticing the two ANBU, staring back at them with probing eyes.

"State your name and business!" the girls rolled their eyes at the lack of grace the men held, they held up their cards, not speaking a word to the scowling men, who muttered something about their homeland and stepped aside, allowing them entrance.

"Pretty stupid having men at the gates, they'd let anyone in, we could have faked those and they wouldn't of known a thing" Santana laughed sharply, they had always been told that they were just as good if not better than most men, but the girls still hoped to find love someday. "Though I wouldn't mind some eye-candy in the exams"

The girls laughed more casually now, joking about who was going to be the first to fall in love and declare their leave from the village and get pregnant with twins. "Personally I think it will be Lara, she flirts enough for all of us" Mia smirked as Lara grinned and faked offense.

"I've just thought, where are we actually supposed to go?" the girls just stood there in the middle of the empty street, glancing between themselves.

"Well there is a place supplying mixed housing for the foreign Genin, so we go find the Hokage and ask him I guess" Mia stared up at the large mountain, with faces carved into them, she nodded at them, before following her teammates up towards the Hokage tower.

The trio had been directed up to his office, before being left alone to speak with the Hokage himself. Lara took a deep breath and knocked swiftly, before pushing the door open, when a rough voice beckoned them inside.

Sat behind the oak desk, was an old man with a grey beard, and surprisingly warm eyes. He smiled at them and placed his pen on the desk and taking his glasses off, silently asking them of their needs.

"Hokage-sama, we are the Genin of the Land of the Amazon, we request to know where to stay for the night" he nodded and reached over to grab a piece of paper with directions on it.

"Here you go girls, the Shinobi there will direct you to your room, their will be a meeting room if you wish to socialize with the other Genin. Have a good sleep" Mia accepted the paper with a sharp nod and strode out of the office, Lara and Santana hot on her heels.

"so do we mingle or do we sleep?" Santana asked, folding her arms over her chest, the air was getting chilly, and they were only a block away from the houses. All Genin taking part were required to stay here, even if they were native to Konaha.

"We should check out the opposition, see if there is anybody you would want to chat to" Mia wanted to meet some new people and make friends, people who knew about their land usually avoided them in fear that they would attack them, but those who did not seemed to be fine around them.

The building was large and they assumed that they would be sleeping in separate small rooms, rather than communal rooms, in case anyone tried to kill or drug another contestant. The trio held their heads high and sauntered into the building, face showing no nerves, they were ready for this. The woman behind the desk was in her early twenties and wore an outfit too tight for her, it made Santana grimace, no wonder people thought so little of woman if they dressed like this.

"Can I help you girls?" her voice was high pitched and she wore her glasses on the edge of her nose, indicating that she probably wore them to look 'smarter'.

"We are here for the Chunin exams, can you direct us to room 312 please?" Lara kept her voice sweet and plastered a realistic smile on her face. The woman nodded and told them to go up the stairs and it was the third door on the left from the meeting hall. "Thank you"

They walked off glancing around, at the abandoned hallway, at the end was a lift and a door to some stairs. "Let's take the stairs" Mia took the stairs two at a time, easily reaching the top within a minute or so. There was a commotion at the end of the hall, in the meeting room. They ignored it for now and set off towards their room, before dumping their bags on their beds.

A knock brought them out of their trances, Santana glanced to the other two before opening the door to a flustered looking girl. "Can you fight?" her voice was rushed, and it took the girls by surprise. Santana nodded and the girl explained that there was a fight going on between the older kids and no one could stop it, and they were all going to get in trouble if it was not stopped.

Mia growled, annoyed that her time of peace was being disturbed and stalked out of her room, scaring the girl with the look of hatred in her eyes. Lara and Santana looked worriedly between themselves and quickly followed after their pissed off teammate.

The room was manic, there was people getting hit all over the place, though Mia noticed three ninja sitting in the corner of the room, glaring into the noisy crowd. "Mia! We don't want to draw attention to ourselves" she sighed and nodded, though she was sure she could take down most of the people in the room quite easily.

Mia noticed a fist fly towards a scared looking girl, who had short dark blue hair, and pupil-less lilac eyes. She zipped over and grabbed the fist before it came in contact with her face, she heard a soft sigh of relief come from the girl. Mia stared the boy down, making him flinch, the fighting had to be stopped and she knew how to do it.

She looked over to Santana and Lara who had remained by the door, giving the crowd disapproving looks. Mia flipped the boy and kicked him into a nearby wall, making him groan and stay there, in fear of pissing her off even more.

She glowered and told the darkness to separate the crowd, darkness swirled out from around her, like a thick black gloopy fog, but it was completely opaque. It wrapped itself around each person fighting and held them up of the ground pinning their arms to their sides, cries of shock and protest emitted from the hovering people. They were desperately looking around for the source of the dark gloop, no one else dared to move.

Mia sighed and strolled back over to her teammates turning back around to face the panicked Genin. "If you don't want to be humiliated then don't get into ridiculous fights, or trust me, I'll show you how hard it can squeeze" she hissed out the last bit and swiftly walked out of the room, releasing the darkness, not bothering to look back.

Lara scratched her forehead and looked around at the shocked ninja, who were muttering things like, 'spoilt brat', 'who does she think she is', 'he started it'. Santana nudged her and walked over to the lilac eyed girl, Mia protected, she looked very frail and they felt as if they should check on her.

She was sitting with a group of people, one boy looked exactly like her but with long brown hair, next to him sat a boy in green spandex with a black bowl cut and bushy eyebrows, on the floor infront of him was a girl who wore a pink wrap around top and had her brown hair in two tight buns. On the other side of the girl was a boy with a grey coat on and a little puppy on his head, next to him was another boy with another longer grey cloak on, that covered most of his face, under that he wore black sunglasses, not giving anything away about him.

Lara spoke first. "Erm, hi" they all stared at her as if she had grown another head. "You didn't look so good so we thought we'd check on you, we hope our teammate got to you in time"

"and we hope she didn't scare you" Santana added, with a roll of her eyes. "she's not always like that, she just needs some sleep" the girl smiled at them.

"T-Thank you, b-but I'm f-f-fine. T-tell yo-your friend t-thank y-you for h-helping me" Lara smiled and plonked herself down infront of the girl, ignoring the glare she got of the lilac eyed boy next to her.

"So what's your names then?" Santana asked sitting on the bench next to the girl, the little dog jumped onto her lap and she giggled, scratching him between the ears.

"I-I'm Hinata" the dog barked and wagged his tail, as if telling her it's name too.

"I'm Kiba and that is my dog Akamaru, this is Shino our other teammate" the boy said giving them a wolfish grin, Lara smiled and reached over, patting Akamaru.

"I'm Lara and that's Santana, oh and grumpy is Mia, but she's actually one of the nicest people you'll meet. Well… if she thinks you're ok" the two girls winked at eachother, as if sharing an inside secret. Then Mia came back into the hall and silence fell, she just rolled her eyes and strolled over to her teammates.

"I forgot the keys" she couldn't help but return the cheeky smile Santana sent her, before she was tossed the keys, she waved at them and exited the hall once again.

"Well beautiful girls, I'm Rock Lee, and I will always protect you" Santana scowled, again with the protecting thing. Lee frowned, confused why the girls looked miffed with him. "Why are you so angry, I'm rather confused" his eyebrows knotted together as he tried to muster up a reason for their annoyed faces.

"Just because we're girls does not for any reason mean we need protecting, you seem like a nice guy Lee, but if you want to keep that up, don't offer that around Mia" Lee nodded and promised never to say it again, causing the girls to smile, nothing seemed to put his happy demeanour down.

"And the lovely lady here is Tenten, and that is Neji" Tenten smiled at them and Neji just nodded, Lara frowned at him, he was the typical boy, 'I'm better than you'.

"You're an all-girl team, that's highly unusual, where do you come from?" Tenten asked , turning to fully face them.

"We come from the Land of The Amazons, there are no males there, they are strictly forbidden from entering the village, or they get killed on sight" Kiba gulped, Shino remained passive and Neji simply glowered harder. Santana stuck her tongue out at him and ignored him after that.

"I'm tired so I'm going to head off to bed, and pray Mia is in a better mood in the morning" Lara waved them goodbye, getting many back, Santana also bidding her goonights.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day…


	2. Enter Uzamaki Naruto!

**Chapter 2 – Enter Uzamaki Naruto!**

Mia woke with a start, her breathing was heavy and she was gripping the bed sheets. Lara and Santana were breathing softly in the beds next to her, unaware to their friend's awakening. She groaned and pushed herself out of the bed and towards the en-suite bathroom that had a shower in it, but no toilet. She rid herself of her PJs and slipped in, letting the heat of the water soothe her muscles.

After about 10 minutes in the shower she slid out and into a towel, drying herself off. It had seemed as if Lara and Santana had made new friends, that would be better for her considering she was feeling considerably better today, but it would be difficult for anyone to talk to her easily after her display of power the night before.

It was still 3 days before the first exam and she was stumped on what to do, she figured she could train but it would make no difference considering the equipment here was not the same as the one she used to harness her power to the full.

She returned into the room dressed in a baby-blue, short sleeved t-shirt and some black baggy sweat pants with her usual black ninja shoes on. She brushed her hair, putting the white streak in place before removing the water from her hair. She sighed, looking back at her sleeping teammates, she didn't want to sit around being silent until they woke up, so she grabbed her key and slid it into her pocket, she didn't carry around any weapons as she would never need them.

She sauntered into the nearly empty meeting room, when a flash of green appeared infront of her. "Hello youthful spirit, I hope you are feeling better today, I am Rock Lee! You must be Mia, what a pleasure to meet you" he was down on one knee, beaming up at her. She smiled back down at him and nodded, offering him her hand.

He accepted and let her pull him to his feet, his team were sitting in the same spot as yesterday, though the girl she saved was not there. "So… sorry about yesterday"

Rock lee shook his head, insisting that she did nothing wrong and that he admires her bravery. "Would you and your team care to train?" Lee had sparkles in his eyes and then he was gone, talking with his team who nodded and followed him back over to Mia.

"Mia this is Hyuuga Neji and Tenten, how do you wish to train?" she shrugged and followed them out and into an nearby training field.

"Well you see, I'm not like you, I don't use chakra" they all gave her funny looks, she frowned "just watch"

She concentrated on the water and lifted her hand into the air turning it slightly, the water twirled up and spun in the air. They all looked surprised, even Neji, at the fact that the water was moving without any chakra being emitted. "I'm a bender and so are my team, that is why we are together, there are not many in existence, I can bend all of the elements but water is my strongest"

"that's awesome! But what about the black gloop?" Mia sighed and lowered her hand, the water returning to the little pond next to their training area.

"There is a long story behind that, but that is for another time… I can also bend darkness but I do not have to move to do so, it protects me without me even having to ask" darkness spun around in the air next to her, making shapes. "and nothing can penetrate it, if you were to try and throw a kunai at me, the darkness would absorb it and store it in a mass storage for me to collect whenever I want.

They looked dumbstruck. "WOW!" Mia spun to face the noise, there was Kiba's team, and two other squads. They were all standing there utterly shocked at the kunoichi before them, she just smiled and waved to them. Hinata shyly waved back and walked over, a blonde boy hot on her heels.

"I'm Uzamaki Naruto, and I will be Hokage someday, remember that!" Mia grinned and stuck her hand out for him to shake, he grinned and gave her a firm handshake.

"Mia Thermador, good to meet you Naruto" the others introduced themselves, or most of them did, Sakura had to introduce for Sasuke because he was incapable of doing it himself. He just glared her down, as if challenging her to do something.

"Your that girl from yesterday, who broke up the fight and saved Hinata" Sakura said holding her hands under her chin, though she kept glancing to Sasuke with such love it almost made Mia gag, there was nothing about that boy that was worth loving so much. Mia nodded and scratched the back of her head.

She looked up to the building they came from, you could see her window from there. Lara was looking around and when she spotted Mia she waved at her, Mia grinned and motioned for them to come down. "I take it they're you're teammates" Naruto said, shielding his eyes from the sun as he glanced up to the window.

The pair were soon coming onto the field, Lara was dressed in a pale green wrap-around dress that came down to mid-thigh and had black leggings underneath it. Santana had a red long sleeved t-shirt on with dark blue shorts. They were introduced to the squads, and Lara suggested testing Mia's ability by everyone attacking it at the same time and seeing how useful this defence was.

Mia stood in the centre of the field, surrounded by the three squads and her two teammates, and a small crowd of the other Genin had gathered to watch what was going on. She noticed the three Genin that had kept to themselves yesterday, amongst the crowd, the smallest, a boy with flame red hair and a symbol for love on his forehead, had a foul glare on his face. He stood with his arms crossed, a giant gourd on his back, plugged with a cork.

Their gazes met, and his glare just intensified, Mia smiled at him and waved, choosing to ignore his angry demeanour. "Whenever you're ready" as soon as she had finished Lara did a one handed flip and spun twice, before thrusting her hands in Mia's direction, endless searing flames flew out from behind Lara, shooting at dangerous speeds towards the calm ninja. A foot before the flames hit Mia, darkness appeared out of nowhere and completely blocked the attack, not faltering at all.

Mia just smirked and faked a yawn, Lara stuck her tongue out and nodded at Santana, who joined Lara in her leaps before slamming the ground, the earth around Mia broke up and floated in separate pieces, there was no floor beneath Mia but a disk of darkness appeared underneath her feet before she fell an inch. "Is that all you got?"

"How in hell do you do that? How are you so strong?" Naruto practically screamed at the girls. They just laughed and Santana pulled a superman pose and a suit of earth armour attached itself to her, Lara waved it off and stretched, her whole body was set on fire and she just stood there as if nothing was wrong. "WHAT THE HELL?".

"We're benders, and in our village you are only allowed to become a Genin when you are practically Chunin level, you are only allowed to go for Chunin when you are well past Chunin level. That's just how it works" Santana said shrugging, the armour falling back to the ground, everyone gaped at them.

"So that means you're practically Jounin level already, that means we don't stand a chance against you" Lee flushed in awe of the three, who just blushed and shifted awkwardly.

Naruto huffed and made three clones of himself and charged at Mia, the ground having replaced itself. Mia smirked and jumped into the air well above Naruto, she spun and water spun sharply around Mia as she floated in the air, two of Naruto's clones vaulted into the air but the water lashed out at them smashing them into oblivion. Mia dived back down to the ground and kicked the other clone in the head at incredible speed, making that disappear too.

Then suddenly sand shot at her from behind and darkness launched up stopping the sand in its path, she looked over to the crowd and the red head from before was fuming his hand outstretched, so he had the same power as her but for sand. She smirked and sauntered over to the boy, standing on eye level with him.

A sand wall shot up infront of her, she sighed and darkness made a glove over her hand and arm, and she stuck her hand right through the sand as if it wasn't there at all, the two with the boy gasped and stepped away. The sand disappeared and so did the darkness, she gave him two friendly pats on the cheek and smiled. "Lighten up" he glowered at her and briskly stalked off and into the building , the other girl and boy following him with their heads hung low.

"There is something else you're hiding" Sasuke said, looking directly at Mia, who stared right back at him, she knew he was catching on to her smell, it was wolf, she always stank of wolf for the few days after the full moon. She sauntered back over to the group of teens, and shrugged.

"Not the time and place for that, if you really want to know come to my room at 9 tonight, now I'm hungry!" She spun and beckoned her worried teammates to follow. They walked off down the street, looking for somewhere suitable to eat. A blonde blur charged after them, stopping inches away from them, Lara smiled at Naruto as he panted to catch his breath.

"Hey Guys! I was wondering if you wanted to get ramen with me?" Naruto ran a hand through his hair, nervous that they didn't want to hang out with him.

"Sure! It would be nice to have a local with us, or we would have been wandering around for hours" Lara smiled and let Naruto lead them down a few streets to a little ramen bar, where the owner smiled brightly at him. The trio sat on the bar stools next to Naruto, each looking over the menu, there was every flavour you could ever dream of.

Mia ordered chicken, Lara ordered prawn and Santana ordered pork. Naruto ordered 5 bowls of beef, the girls just laughed and made light chat with the blonde boy.

It was 7pm, and two hours until people would turn up, wanting to see what she was hiding. She would rather people saw her for who she really was, and if they chose to walk away then that was their problem, and if they accepted it then great.

Everyone was currently sat talking amongst themselves in the meeting hall, Mia noticed that Neji, Sasuke and Shino didn't say much, but deep down they were ok guys.

"Mia is that white streak natural?" Ino asked, lying on her belly, looking up at Mia's hair. She just nodded, fingering the strands between her fingers, that was a secret she was not willing to tell yet. She glanced around the room, many ninja still avoided her, but there had been no commotion or fights since that night.

She noticed the foreign trio that walked off while she was training, the red haired boy looked at her and glared, she decided that she wanted to know what his problem was. She stood and strolled over to them, his glare intensifying, to the point where if she didn't have nerves of steel, she would be a puddle on the floor. Her teammates just shook their heads, and smiled to themselves as she sat on the floor infront of the unknown Genin.

"Hi" she got no answer and she frowned slightly, the older boy looked nervously to the red head, it was obvious that the older two were related but she wasn't sure about the youngest, and it was obvious that they were scared of the boy. She frowned even more.

"You know, just because he's anti-social, doesn't mean that you two have to be" this time it was the girl to look nervously to her younger teammate. "Look, at least tell me your names"

"I'm Temari, this is my younger brother Gaara and my older brother Kankuro" The girl was blonde and her hair was pulled into four neat pigtails, she carried around a giant fan on her back. Mia presumed that that was her primary weapon, and that she was a long-distance fighter.

"Siblings eh? I'm an only child, shame really, I always wanted a sibling. Oh and by the way, I'm Mia" Temari smiled slightly, and Kankuro finally seemed to be warming up to her.

"Leave… before I kill you" the older siblings bowed their heads, it was obvious that they regretted ever saying anything. Mia smirked at the boy, who in return gave her a blank look, he looked to Temari and she shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

"As if you could, obviously earlier wasn't enough of an indication for you" she glared at him, he didn't so much and flinch, he just sat like a statue. "You know when someone actually tries to be your friend, you should learn to listen and be nice back. Unless you want everyone to avoid you, and it's no one else's fault but yours!" she hissed at him, and stood once again stalking out of the room.

Gaara just stared blankly after her, he knew why he existed, but Mia obviously did not.

She sat in her room, with Lara and Santana. They had saw the confrontation, they knew that Mia meant well, but she was the type of person to be cruel and angry in a second. It was 9pm and they were waiting for a knock to sound on their door. They didn't have to wait long.

Mia got up and opened the door, there stood Neji's team, Naruto's team, Kiba's team and Ino's team. The Amazon trio stood and walked out to the field they were on earlier, there was no one around and all of the windows had their curtains drawn.

"There is something I am not prepared to tell strangers, but I will show you this, make what you will of it, but don't be two faced" with that Mia stalked off into the middle of them, a good distance away from each person, she didn't want to hurt them when she shifted.

There was silence and she took a deep breath, she focused her mind onto the wolf within. She felt her bones changing and fur growing out of her skin, she heard gasps and when she looked up with the same green eyes, even Neji and Sasuke looked shocked. "A wolf?" Sakura looked like she wanted to pass out.

Mia was now a wolf, twice the size of a normal wild wolf, her fur was black with white paws. Lara and Santana grinned and sauntered over, scratching Mia under the chin and behind her ears. Mia let out a low purr, and watched as Naruto cautiously walked over, hand out-stretched.

"She still has her human instincts, though the animal ones are there, so she won't attack you, she is still Mia" Mia pushed her head up into Naruto's hand, earning a soft smile off of the boy. Then she backed off and phased back into her human form, there was no evidence of the change.

"Well, now that that's over, I want to chill, so see you later guys!" Mia waved casually and sauntered over to the building, heading back up to her room. This trip wasn't as bad as she had been expecting.


	3. Confrontations

**Chapter 3 – Confrontations**

Mia woke up at 7, the sun was peeping through the curtains and Lara woke up soon afterwards, Santana remained asleep, she had always been a long, deep sleeper. Lara smiled sleepily at Mia and yawned, stretching out like a cat, Mia just sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, feeling the cold of the floor running through her toes.

"Morning sleepy" Mia smirked as Lara attempted to throw a pillow at her head and missed. They both dressed and went in search of breakfast, they decided to bring some back for Santana too. There was a kitchen in the building, so they decided to go and see what it had in it.

"I'm going to shower first, you go check it out, I'll meet you there" Mia said walking off into the bathroom, leaving Lara to wander around on her own. The blonde girl walked into the corridor, there were only a few other people around, Lara soon realised she didn't have a clue where the kitchen was, though she soon saw Sasuke walking towards the stairs heading down.

"Sasuke!" he stopped and turned, giving her a blank look, she ignored it and bounced over. "Could you point me in the direction of the Kitchen?" he just 'hned' and grabbed her hand walking off down the stairs, Lara in tow.

The kitchen soon came into view and Sasuke sat at the little table in the middle of the room, looking at Lara expectantly. "Thanks Sasuke" she turned to the fridge and opened it up, taking out the orange juice and the butter. She was surprised to find that Sasuke hadn't moved. "Is something up?"

"I want food" he stared at her, waiting to see her reaction. He knew for a fact where she came from and what they thought of men.

"Well get up off your arse and get it" she huffed and poured herself the orange juice and got herself some bread, ready to make some toast. She heard the chair Sasuke was sitting on move, and soon enough he was by her side. Sasuke smirked when she refused to look at him, he grabbed her chin, stopping her from avoiding his eyes, he leaned forward, and for a split second Lara thought that he was going to kiss her. But he just grabbed her finished toast and walked out of the room.

"Bloody stuck-up brat" she slammed her fist on the counter, annoyed but amused at Sasuke's actions, she would have to get payback.

Mia nodded at Sasuke as he walked by, she noticed some fresh toast in his hands and he seemed to be amused at something, but she shrugged it off. She was soon in the kitchen, where Lara sat eating some toast, she smiled when she noticed the other girl standing there.

"How are you?" Mia asked getting herself some cereal, she sat down across from her friend who looked a bit miffed off.

"Fine, apart from Sasuke stealing my toast" Mia raised an eyebrow but questioned no further, that must have been why he had looked so amused when she passed him. "Though I am planning revenge, they are all going swimming later, and I plan on tempting him in, in only his boxers, then running off with his clothes. His fangirls won't be able to resist him" she got an evil glint in her eyes, and Mia just slowly nodded.

"Are you sure you don't just want to see him in his boxers?" she winked cheekily at Lara, who's face turned red with embarrassment and rage and she practically threw her toast at Mia, but Mia took off into the meeting room, Lara hot on her heels. Sasuke was sitting there and she thought she would mess with her friend some more. "Sasuke! I have something important to tell you!"

Lara screamed in rage and launched herself at Mia, sending both of them skidding across the floor towards the raven haired boy. Lara ended up sitting on Mia's back with her hand clamped firmly over her friend's mouth. Mia squirmed, and Lara calmed down and got off her, trusting that she wouldn't say something stupid to the smirking boy.

The whole hall had stopped to watch the commotion, with rather amused expressions. Mia jumped onto her feet and went over to her friends, who had started laughing at her messed up appearance. "Why are you guys always up so early, Santana isn't even awake yet"

It was now 1pm and they were all heading down to the local lake, Santana was finally up and had laughed when Lara had gone into a deep, step by step explanation about her revenge on Sasuke. Sasuke however was completely oblivious.

Lara was in a bikini and when Sasuke said he wasn't swimming she swam to the edge where he was sitting and pouted. "Sasuke-_kun_, just come in your boxers or are you just scared?" He practically growled at her and started stripping, she smiled wickedly at her teammates who were swimming around in the deeper part of the lake.

She had brought her brother's baggy t-shirt, so she could be covered up but put it on easily. But she wanted to swim for a while before she did the deed, so she swam towards her friends, Sasuke not far behind. "Sasuke-kun, you said you weren't coming in?" Sakura looked positively thrilled that Sasuke was in the water, and that he was only clad in soaking boxers. When Sasuke was floating around, Lara took this as her chance and darted out of the water, she slid her top on, gave Mia and Santana a thumbs up and grabbed Sasuke's clothes.

"Oi! Sasuke! Now you know how revenge feels!" his head shot up in time to see Lara sticking her tongue out at him and darting back into their building, he cursed silently and zipped after her, ending up only a metre behind her. She slid into the meeting room, full of Genin fangirls, and as soon as Sasuke slid in after her, they had hearts in their eyes and they tried to grab onto him, but he nimbly dodged them and followed Lara back out of the room.

She shot down the corridor and up the stairs, until she burst out onto the roof, she had nowhere left to run. Sasuke was panting behind her, he blocked off the door as she stood at the railings, he smirked and held his hand out for his clothes. She saw a large puddle on the ground outside of the building, and smirked.

"You want it… go get it" she flung it over her shoulder and it sailed over the side of the building, Sasuke charged to the railings, watching as they landed in the puddle. He slowly turned his gaze to Lara, who looked about ready to run for it.

He slammed his hand over the railing so she was trapped between him and the railings, his face was pink from the slight chill. "No one has ever dared to touch me or my things, nevermind a girl" he smirked, and rested his forehead on her's. "And since you hate men so much, I think I'll do this"

He leaned further forward, fully pinning the girl who glared back at him. He took a deep breath and pressed his lips against hers firmly, she was shocked to say the least, and he closed his eyes, not wanting to face rejection as much as he wouldn't admit it. Then it dawned on her and she smirked into the kiss, though it just seemed to spur the boy on.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, she spun them around an tried to pull back, but Sasuke was faster, and he grabbed her waist holding her there. "Let go" she hissed out at him, but he just smirked and spun then back, so she was once again trapped. "Oh and you're a crap kisser, you put no feeling into it"

He raised an eyebrow, he had not expected that. "Well if you're so great, then teach me" it was her turn to be surprised she expected him to order her to go and get his clothes, but no.

"Is that a challenge?" Sasuke smirked and leaned down to her ear, his breath ghosting over her neck.

"Only if you think you can handle it" they both stared eachother down. "Ladies first"

"then why aren't you going?" he didn't react but smashed his lips back onto her's, waiting for her to do something. He had never kissed anyone before, and neither had Lara.

She tilted her head slightly to the right, making it easier for them both. Sasuke took the hint and Lara gasped when she felt his tongue slip out over her lip, he took this as a good thing and slid into her mouth. Lara freaked and pulled back, Sasuke looked confused for a second but his emotionless face soon came back onto show.

"Why are you doing this?" Sasuke couldn't answer, his façade slipped. He didn't know, Lara wasn't like the other girls but was that enough? He frowned and walked away, still in his boxers, going to retrieve his clothes, leaving Lara standing there dumbfounded.

Santana saw Neji floating on his back, with his eyes closed, she grinned and submerged herself in the water swimming until she was under the boy.

She quickly surfaced and jumped onto his stomach, bringing him under with her. She stuck her head above the water laughing as a drenched Neji resurfaced, glaring daggers at her. "You're looking a bit wet there" he just stared at her like she was nothing more than an animal.

"Lighten up lilac eyes" she grinned and pushed off towards the shore, when a sudden flow of rocks fell on top of the pair trapping them so they were pressed against eachother, their faces barely an inch away. Neji's eyes seemed to glow in the dark, the complete opposite of Santana's.

"Bravo" she shivered when his voice blew over her neck, he smirked and sensed their friends digging them out, but a sudden shift, had their faced clamped together, unable to separate. Eyes just as wide as the other's, as their lips joined in a soft embrace.

Santana tried to speak, but it just made it seem as if she was trying to deepen the kiss. Neji smirked and again it just added to the kiss, Santana just shrugged and thought 'what the hell' she slid her tongue out, surprising Neji. But he never backed down from a challenge, especially not from some girl. He pushed her tongue back into her mouth with his and took over.

Then suddenly the top stone was lifted and their tongues retreated and they pulled away faster than the eye could catch, it hadn't even looked like they had been joined at all.

Neji gave Santana a questioning glance once they were out, she just shrugged, indicating that it was just a spur of the moment thing. Everyone went back to swimming and Santana looked around to find that both of her teammates had gone wandering.

Mia had gotten dressed again and was going back into the building, only to walk right into Gaara. She looked around for Kankuro and Temari but they were nowhere to be seen. "Hello Gaara, how are you today?" he stared at her as if she was merely a piece of dirt, blocking his path.

Mia was losing the will with the boy, and she was getting angry at his obnoxiousness. "What is your problem?"

He glared at her. "Why do you talk to me? I'm a monster, I want to kill you and I will. I killed my mother and you're next! I live to kill. That is my only purpose in life, I love only myself and live for only myself. My aim is to kill every other human being in this world" She was fuming.

She pulled her fist back and punched him across the face, sending him flying into a tree, his sand easily breaking the fall. "You don't know what having no parents is like, I was born from the hands of Death himself!" she flew at him but she stopped an inch away from his face.

"My father tried to assassinate me countless times, from when I was 6. That is worse than having no parents, I was the sands greatest weapon, with the Shukaku sealed inside of me. but I was too unstable, so I was deemed unreliable" Mia was shocked to say the least, but that gave him no right to kill people.

"if anything that should make you more determined to change the world, make it a better place, not a place of mass murders" Gaara was almost as angry as her, they stood glaring at eachother.

"Shut up!" Gaara tried to enclose her in a sand coffin but the darkness sent the sand flying, not so much as brushing Mia. "Why won't you die?"

Mia sighed and walked up until she was in Gaara's face, and she lowered her voice until it was soft again, on the verge of a whisper. "I can't be killed, I can only die of old age" Gaara looked shocked. Mia smiled lightly, her eyes holding the sadness that Gaara would not display. "But that is a story for when you realise that someone is trying to be your friend, and that you should relish in the opportunity"

Mia leaned up and kissed Gaara's tattoo. "everyone needs a friend, someone who loves and cares for them" she smiled and walked around him and into the building, deciding that she wanted to take a nap, this was becoming difficult to control and fast.

Lara was sitting in the room when Mia walked in, she was crying. "Lara? What happened? That bastard didn't hurt you did he?" Lara just shook her head and cried harder, Mia sat with her until she was ready to talk.


	4. Confessions

**Chapter 4 – Confessions**

Mia lay in bed, she couldn't get to sleep after what had happened. Though at the thought, her mind drifted into a dreamless slumber.

_~ FLASHBACK ~_

_Mia had gone for Santana a few minutes after she had found Lara crying so viciously, they needed to have a serious talk._

_Once the pair had arrived back at the room, Lara hadn't moved an inch, though her tears were now silent. "Lara babe, don't cry. Was is Sasuke? Because if you want I can chase him down and make sure he won't have any kids any time soon?" Lara just let out a shaky laugh._

"_I'm so stupid" her words came out inbetween soft sobs, Mia and Santana sat on either side, cuddling the crying girl. "I just had to go and fall in love with Mr. Heartless" the other two didn't know what to say, that was the last thing they expected her to say._

"_How do you know? What happened?" Mia asked, glancing nervously at Santana._

"_I chucked his clothes off the side of the building and he kissed me" again the other two were rendered silent, though Santana smiled "Though we ended up kissing eachother, then I asked him why he did it and he didn't know, he frowned and walked away"_

"_Well if it makes you feel any better me and Neji kissed" now it was Lara's turn to be shocked, Santana just shrugged. "He's cute" the girls smiled, and looked to Mia as if expecting her to say that she snogged the face off of someone too._

"_I punched Gaara" the other two laughed, as if they should have known already. "Then we had a strange sort of heart to heart, though I still think he hates me, I kissed his forehead if that counts" she smiled with the rest of them, Lara seemed to be feeling better. "I can punch Sasuke to if you want"_

_~ END FLASHBACK~_

Mia awoke first again, it was the last day of relaxation before the exams, she knew she had revealed too much to the Biji holder the day before. The Shukaku would explain his control of sand, but the boy did not seem to have been taught anything other Justus, though he had probably never needed it before.

She decided to get dressed and wake the other two, she didn't think leaving Lara on her own was a good thing, with her emotions running wild.

The Amazon trio, dressed and raring to go, walked into the meeting hall. The Konoha squads seemed to be talking to a strange silver haired Konoha shinobi, she nearly gasped out in shock when a familiar eerie voice echoed in her head.

'**Mia… that man is dangerous, he must be stopped. He is out to get your blonde friend's boyfriend, the Uchiha. The man is one of Orochimaru's men'**

That was the voice of her 'father', and she knew he was right. She glared at the man's back, and he turned and winked at her, before turning back to Naruto. Her teammates knew instantly, and they walked over, cautious about the man.

"I have ninja info cards on just about every ninja you could dream of" he looked directly at Mia, who sent him a glare to rival that of Death. He flinched slightly and looked back to the exited Genin.

"Then prove it" Kabuto raised an eyebrow at the bold Uchiha boy, in question of what ninja he wanted to view. "Gaara of the Sand, Rock Lee of the Leaf, Mia Thermador of the Amazon" Mia smirked this should be interesting, she moved so she could see the cards.

A card appeared on the floor, with Gaara's image on it. Kabuto read out his style and his missions. "12 C rank, 14 B rank, 3 A rank. And he came back from all totally unscathed" there was a few murmurs from the gathered crowd, but Mia scoffed.

Lee's was next, Team Gai was nowhere to be seen. "17 C rank, 2 B rank, 0 A rank. He specialises in Taijustsu only, and his speed is outstanding" Kabuto looked up to Mia when her card appeared.

"Mia Thermador, is the host for Darkness and is a bender, cannot use jutsu. 4 C rank, 13 B rank 16 A rank. Came back from all missions, including solo A rank missions unscathed and returned within days of leaving for week long missions" everyone's eyes were set on Mia, who just shrugged and chose to threaten Kabuto mentally instead.

She felt someone about to attack Kabuto, but she ignored it and let it happen. Sound erupted infront of the silver haired shinobi, shattering his glasses. The attacker glanced at Mia's card then to the glaring girl herself, he backed off slowly, deciding it would be better if he left her alone.

'**Now is your chance… finish him' **she nodded to the voice, and slowly strode towards the coughing man. Just as she was about to finish him, the Hokage walked into the room, and something tried to grab her, but the darkness sprung up before they got near enough.

"Mia, I do believe we need to have a little chat. Please follow me to the office" Mia watched as Kabuto smirked at her, and she simply nodded in the Hokage's direction. She knew he would demand to know why she was trying to murder one of his citizens. She was worried that it had cost her and her team her place in the exams.

Lara and Santana sent eachother nervous looks, and slumped back into their seats, preparing themselves for a possible disqualification. They knew about Mia's past, they had too, they were all practically sisters. When Kabuto grinned like he had won a prize, Santana glared at him and punched him in the face, sending his flying a few feet.

They would not put up with any crap, especially not from a man who thought that little girls couldn't hold their own.

Mia sat, looking calmly into the frustrated Hokage's eyes. There were no other people in the room, leaving them to chat privately, she knew he was going to mention her past, and she knew she was going to have to spill the beans. But that was not something anyone forgot about, and looked away as if it was nothing, it was not normal and it was dangerous.

"Mia, I think you know what I'm going to say. You openly attacked a member of Konoha and I heard about the fight the night before" his voice was level and showed no signs of anger towards the kunoichi. She just nodded, not speaking until it was determined necessary. "Why did you attack Kabuto?"

"He is working with Orochimaru…" Sarutobi's eyes widened for a split second before returning to their calm state.

"How do you know this?" she said nothing, she could feel the ears listening in to their conversation, she was not going to be tricked.

"Why should I tell someone who told his people to leave, but lets them listen anyway, I see no reason why I should tell strangers everything about me" Sarutobi sighed and leaned forward onto his desk, Mia was being more difficult that he had hoped.

"If he is working with Orochimaru, then we could stop it, but we do not know if you are lying, someone must have told you" she briefly closed her eyes and assembled her thoughts, she was going to tell him whether she wanted to or not.

"I was born a stillborn, no one could revive me. Except him… my body and cells were compatible with darkness, so he gave me life and infused the darkness into me, so it answers to me and protects me." she paused to get more comfortable, the Hokage didn't seem to fazed, but the puzzled look in his eyes indicated he had no clue who 'he' was.

"He brought me back into the real world when I was 5, guiding me mentally through anything that came my way, and then I found Leah-sensei, she took me in and cared for me, unknowing of the voice inside my head, warning me about any possible danger. Have you ever wondered why I can't die? He's protecting me, if I get sick he heals me instantly, if I get hurt he heals me, I can only die of old age."

"Who is he Mia?" Mia smiled a slightly sinister smile, and looked directly into the Hokage's eyes.

"Death" Sarutobi's eyes widened and stayed that way, his mouth opened as if to say something, but nothing came out.

"Death as in…" Mia sighed, knowing he didn't believe her in the slightest.

"The Grim Reaper" Sarutobi looked to the door where three ANBU stood, blocking the exit. "If you don't believe me I can always call him up here to chat"

Sarutobi looked wearily at the girl before him, thinking for a moment. Before he nodded, Mia went into a trance and more ANBU appeared in the room.

Mia was in a dark room in her head, she glanced around searching for the one she called father. He stood at the other end of the room, the dark shading him from view, though Mia had seen him many times before. She smiled at him and motioned up, he took the hint and darkness swirled around them, appearing in the centre of the room just as Mia woke up.

Mia sighed and turned to face the hooded figure, the ninja drew their weapons but they would do nothing on the entity. "Meet my father, Death" the figure wore a floaty cloak made out of darkness and he was merely bones, though he held a giant scythe in his right hand, showing the bones. The temperature dropped severely and it was as if you could hear the souls flying around him.

Sarutobi could say nothing to the eerie being. "Hokage-san" his cold voice filled the room and the ninja visibly shivered. The Hokage stood and nodded at the being.

"I think we have enough proof gentlemen, we are to let Kabuto carry on, and stop him if he attempt to leave or do anything" the ninja nodded and disappeared once again.

Death looked down to his 'daughter and rested a hand on her shoulder before dissipating into nothing. Sarutobi looked to Mia, with strong eyes. "I am sorry we doubted you, but I think we should keep this to ourselves don't you?" Mia nodded and stood also, bowing to the Hokage before walking back to the worried meeting room.

Eyes were on her as she entered, secretly hoping that she had been disqualified, suddenly a long black snake followed her into the room, she knew it was her father, he really didn't trust the man who sent her a cold glare. Causing the snake to hiss violently at him, Lara and Santana quickly stood and bowed to the snake who just nodded at them.

"Well I'm still here, I think you can guess who showed up in the meeting" the girls again looked to the snake, who hadn't taken it's eyes of the man who sat, muttering with him team. They smiled softly and embraced their friend, thanking that she was ok. "I'll speak to you later" they nodded and they walked back over to their friends who looked nervously down at the snaked, who had wound it's way around Mia's neck, settling there.

"Who's the snake?" Kiba asked, shifting uncomfortably under it's gaze. Mia also shifted, trying to think of a believable answer, that wasn't 'my father'.

"He lives with me in the Amazon, he takes many forms" she looked over to the three sand Genin, who just stared at her, willing her to do something out of the ordinary.

"Things just keep getting weirder and weirder with you" Naruto said, but grinned at her, indicating that he was just joking, but he didn't know how right he was.

It was 10pm and the snaked had disappeared, leaving the three girls in their room to chat in peace. Mia lay back and looked to her curious friends.

After she had explained what had happened, they seemed shocked about Kabuto, and snickered at the ninjas' reaction to Death. 2You should have seen their faces, I nearly laughed at them, but their eyes were still ready to kill, not like they could"

"So have you spoken to Sasuke today then?" Lara shook her head, but a confused look was on her face.

"He just keeps staring at me weirdly, I don't know what to say to him" Santana nodded, understanding, she had seen the looks he had given her.

"He stares at her as if she's his but he's losing her, it's almost as if he's trying to reach out to her but won't talk to her" Mia frowned, Lara did not belong to a douche like Sasuke, who couldn't even be a man enough to talk to the girl.

"Well, I don't know about you two but I'm knackered and the exams start tomorrow" the girls grinned, exited that they finally had their chance to shine.


	5. Let the Exams Begin!

**Chapter 5 – Let the Exams Begin!**

**Sorry about Sasuke being OOC in this chapter…**

The girls all awoke at the same time and practically squealed with giddiness. They dressed and ate quickly, before heading into the meeting hall, where people were crowded around a large bulletin board. "It must be the info for the first exam today"

They walked over to the board, to see the details of where they needed to go, their exam was in 10 minutes, the cursed and ran out of the building, following the directions for their exam room. Which wasn't far from their rooms at all, just around the corner.

There was a commotion outside of a room, the one they were supposed to be in. All of the girls sighed and went to walk by, seeing that it was a genjustu being used. "Hey! Lara-chan, Santana-chan, Mia-chan, where you going?" Lara smiled at Naruto who watched them confused.

"You may as well drop the genjustu, it's rather pathetic to be honest, don't you Jounin had better things to do with your time?" Mia smirked as the 'Genin' smirked at her, looking slightly annoyed. The genjustu was removed and the sign changed, showing they were on the wrong floor, the two fled out of the window, leaving everyone standing there dumbfounded.

The room was large, with rows of bench like tables, some seats were already filled. As they entered they were each given a seat number, the girls grinned at eachother and sat down. Mia was sat next to Gaara, who didn't look terribly pleased, with Sakura on her left. Lara had Sasuke on her right and a foreign female ninja who looked at the Uchiha with hearts in her eyes, he simply ignored her and chose to stare secretly at Lara instead. Santana had Neji on her left and Chouji on her right.

Suddenly a man strode in, he had a strong air of authority about him, and it made some of the ninja shudder. She recognised him as one of the men in the room with her and the Hokage during their 'chat'. He looked to her and smirked at her, which she returned with ease, not fearing the man at all.

"My name is Ibiki, and I am your proctor for the first exam. The exam will consist of multiple questions, your job is to answer them. If we see you cheating you will be disqualified, oh and if you are disqualified, so are the rest of your team" there was quiet muttering floating around, the voices sounded horrified.

"The papers are being set infront of you, you have one hour to finish the first part of this exam, then we shall discuss the tenth question" he glared around the room, seizing people up. "BEGIN!" the sound of pencils and papers fluttering was the only noise to be heard. Mia just picked up her pencil calmly and turned over the paper, she could feel her father waiting to tell her the answers.

'**B, D, Defence, A, C, A, D, B, B'** she smirked to herself and silently thanked him for his help. she placed her pencil down, unintentionally loudly, and turned over her paper, so that no one could cheat from it. Ibiki stared at her, slightly shocked, but soon recovered. She just grinned at him cheekily.

She stretched and leaned back, smiling to herself, that was too easy. It was obvious that the point of this test was to cheat, because the questions were well beyond Genin level. Though Lara and Santana had also soon finished, without cheating.

Naruto didn't seem to grasp the fact that he was supposed to cheat, so instead he chose to stare at the page blankly, hoping to god that something would come to him, and by the looks of things… it didn't.

She noticed Gaara pressing his eye, but he disguised it as rubbing it. Soon a tiny sand eye appeared infront of him, it looked to her but she had turned her papers over, she just smirked at it instead and so it moved off to find another target. She noticed Temari and Kankuro sharing details very discretely, and Hinata was looking to Naruto with worried eyes. Neither of them wanted him to fail this test.

Mia was insanely bored, she had nothing at all to do, if she looked at anyone she would be 'caught out'. Then suddenly a hand infront of her shot up, it was Kankuro's. Ibiki glanced at him, as if questioning what the boy wanted.

"I need the loo" Ibiki just nodded and watched as a Jounin handcuffed Kankuro to him and lead him out of the room. It was then that she realised that Kankuro's puppet was missing, she grinned to herself, knowing exactly where the puppet was.

It was only fifteen minutes into the exam and Mia was starting to get a bit drowsy, she had overworked herself the night before. Slowly her head dipped and she fell asleep, when it clunked against the desk everyone, except Gaara jumped or flinched. The Jounin just shook their head.

"Exam is over please put your pencils down" Mia was still soundly asleep and oblivious of the amused glanced of her friends. "Someone wake the girl"

"Erm… be careful when you do it, she flails if she is woken up unnaturally, and it hurts" Gaara raised a non-existent eyebrow, and watched as a Jounin stood and walked over to the girl as he reached down to nudge her a fist flew up but as he went to block it, their fists collided and two sickening cracks sounded. Suddenly Mia's head shot up and her eyes fell onto her broken wrist, and then to the wincing jounin. Lara and Santana just shook their heads.

Another Jounin stood and healed the man's hand, but as she was heading over to Mia she hissed and gripped the table with her good hand, feeling it crumble away from the pressure. "My wrist is fine now, there is no need for your concern" the Jounin looked shocked but sat back down anyway.

Ibiki just stared at the girl, he didn't know whether to be amused or annoyed. Mia smiled nervously at the man and brushed the dust off of the table. "Sorry about the table" he just sighed heavily and shook his head.

"Right now that that is over, it's time for the tenth question… but if you were to fail this question you will be stripped of your ninja title and never be allowed to take this test again. Now if you quit, you are free to try again next year" many hands were raised and them and their teams were told to leave, along with the teams that were caught cheating.

Mia gasped softly when Naruto raised his hands, she could feel the anger radiating off of Sasuke. But just as soon as Naruto's hand was raised, it was slammed down onto the table and he stood. "I am Naruto Uzamaki and I will never quit, I will become Hokage someday" Ibiki raised an eyebrow and watched as the faces of the other contestants brightened.

Mia chuckled, trust Naruto to make some big speech, though she also noticed the mood change, no one else raised their hands.

"Well if no one else is quitting… then you all pass!" excited mutter and confused shouts chorused through the room. "ENOUGH! The 'last question' was a test of your decision making, there will be times where you have to make tough decisions, and you make not always make the right ones. The other questions were merely testing your ability to gather information without getting caught. But enough about that, your second examiner –"

He was cut off when a woman smashed through the glass and landed gracefully infront of Ibiki, a curtain being pulled infront of him, hiding him from view.

"Alright you maggots! I am Anko, your next examiner" Ibiki peered around the curtain, obviously not pleased, Anko just waved him off and carried on. "Your second exam will begin tomorrow at 9am, do not be late! You may leave"

"You're early" Anko merely shrugged and clambered back out of the window as the Genin filed out of the room.

Mia met up with her friends and Naruto bounced up and examined her hand, she just grinned at him. "How did it heal itself so fast, it was only broken for a matter of seconds?" Mia just shrugged winking at the blonde, before leisurely walking over to her teammates who just laughed and allowed her room to sit down.

"So how did you guys do on the questions?" they all said how they cheated off the people around them, except for the Amazon team, who found the questions rather easy.

"Did you know you sleep with your mouth open" Mia blushed and looked away, to see Gaara and his siblings walking back to the hotel. They laughed and made impressions of her, Kiba throwing a random snore in there too.

The girls were back in there room, and Lara said she would go get them some biscuits. She bounced out of the room, feeling quite proud of her friends, even though Mia had admitted to being lazy an asking Death for help.

Before she knew it she was in the kitchen, she shook her head, cursing herself for being so dazed. She went over to the cabinet and tried to reach the biscuit tin, but it was on the top shelf and she found herself struggling to reach it. She froze when she felt someone lean into her, and she saw a pale hand easily grasp the tin before bringing down infront of the blonde.

She had a sneaky feeling that she knew exactly who is was, for his smell lingered in the air around her. He removed himself from her but chose to lean against the counter next to her instead, she muttered a thank you, before attempting to leave, after picking out a few biscuits.

"Lara" his voice was soft and his hand held her arm, stopping her from walking away. She felt her emotions welling up but she pushed them away, knowing that she would react badly if she didn't. he tugged slightly turning her to face him, his face held a frown, a big change to his usual emotionless expression.

"Why are you ignoring me?" she raised an eyebrow, she hadn't even noticed him trying to talk to her. "Look I'm sorry about what I did the other day, if it bothered you that much then I'll leave you alone" his face returned to normal and he walked out.

"Sasuke wait!" he didn't even turn around, she cursed him again, why did he always appear in the kitchen. she hurried to her room and dropped the biscuits off before rushing out again, Santana and Mia just sat there and shrugged, knowing to give the blonde her space.

Lara found herself outside of Team 7's room, she took a deep breath and knocked firmly on the door, the was no answer. She could sense Sasuke's chakra in the room, and he was alone. "Sasuke Uchiha, open this door before I break it down!"

The door slowly opened, revealing a rather annoyed Uchiha. "Don't give me that look Uchiha! You walked off" he moved aside and back to his bed, leaving the door open so Lara could come in, she did and softly closed the door behind her.

She sat on Sakura's bed which was next to the Uchiha's, he was staring out of the window. "I'm not purposely ignoring you, I just haven't noticed you trying to talk to me. what happened… it didn't bother me in the way you would think" Sasuke finally looked to her as she stood and smiled at him, he didn't want her to leave again.

"Stay" I was barely a whisper but it was still demanding, Lara laughed softly and turned and sat back down next to Sasuke on his bed.

She wasn't expecting him to grasp her face and kiss her again, but this time she didn't fight it, she smiled into the kiss and kissed the boy back, before pulling away. "Why? This time I want an answer" Sasuke looked to his feet, she had never heard of the Uchiha clan being shy.

"you're not like the other girls, something about you draws me to wherever you are. I want revenge and I believe that you knew that already, but until I do it, I –" he stopped a soft blush gracing his features, Lara smiled and kissed his forehead.

"I'll be your girlfriend" he smirked up at her and stood offering her his hand, which she took and was pulled into a quick kiss. "I need to get back" she was confused when Sasuke kept his hold on her hand and walked out of the room with her, she smiled when she realised that he was walking her to her room.

"Are you going to say something to Neji about the kiss?" Santana shrugged, not really caring, she wouldn't go chasing him around, she would lure him to her instead.

They were shocked when the door opened to Lara who was smiling to herself, but both girls say the boy clad in blue, who was walking away. They looked at eachother then smirked questioningly at the blushing blonde, once she realised that they had saw Sasuke leaving.

" I do remember you complaining about boys being here, but now it seems as if you're enjoying his company quite a bit" she smacked Santana over the head and leaned back onto her bed.

"I'm just going to say it, I'm dating Sasuke" Mia burst out laughing and rolled off of the bed, hitting the floor with a thump, Santana soon started laughing too and held her sides as the breath was stolen from her. Lara was so confused at what they found to be so funny.

"Whatever, I'm going to bed" that only set the two off further, and Mia soon had tears rolling down her face.


	6. Heaven Scroll

**Chapter 6 – Heaven Scroll**

The trio awoke at 8am, and groaned, they had the next part of the exams and they were sure that it would involve fighting of some sort. "I think I'll make us some breakfast today" Mia said standing and stretching, they dressed into their ninja gear and headed down to the kitchen.

Team 7 sat in the kitchen eating toast and fruit, Santana and Lara sat down with them. Lara and Sasuke smiled at eachother but made no move to do anything else, obviously Sakura and Naruto didn't know about their relationship. "You guys want some scrambled eggs and bacon?" then nodded and began to chat with the ally team.

Soon three plates of egg and bacon were on the table and the girls dug in.

When they arrived into the meeting room, the bulletin board showed them where they were to go for the second exam. They were slightly confused as it was outside and next to the so called 'Forest of Death', Lara snickered making a comment about how Mia would be fine then.

When they got there, the forest was behind large electric gates, and the trees were larger than any she had seen before, none of the girls missed the large snake-like shadow that winded its way through the foliage. They just glanced to eachother, and walked over to where everyone was gathered, and there stood Anko grinning like a child.

"So now that everyone is here, I'll explain how this will work, as most of you know, this is the Forest of Death. Each team will be given either a Heaven scroll or an Earth scroll, and your objective is to get the other scroll by any means and get to the tower in the centre" she held up a large map of the Forest, Mia could feel Death making a copy in her brain.

"It is about a 5 days trip from here to the tower, each team will have a separate gate to start from. Whatever you do, do not open the scrolls or you will regret ever coming into this exam. If your teammate is killed or unable to continue you will be disqualified" Naruto mumbled something and Anko grinned, suddenly a kunai whizzed past Naruto's face slicing his cheek.

Anko appeared next to Naruto and a long snake-like tongue licked the drops of blood from Naruto's cheek, but the cut remained and Naruto winced. Mia scowled and her darkness swirled around the wound, healing it within a matter of seconds. Naruto sent her a cheeky grin, which she returned.

Suddenly the kunai was back, and being held over Naruto's shoulder by another, longer, snake-like tongue. She heard Santana gag behind her, whoever it was did have bad breath. It smelled of rust, almost like blood, her father growled lowly in her head.

'**Orochimaru' **Mia's eyes widened, and Anko sent her a look.

"Sorry about that, I couldn't resist the blood" Mia hissed without realising it, and the man's attention was suddenly on her, he smiled and she saw his face a bit better, she could have sworn that his eyes were like a snake's too. He walked over and reached a hand out to touch her face but suddenly the black snake was back, as if it came out of her back. It had attached itself to the man's hand, threatening to rip it off.

And then the man was gone, the snake hissed and slithered away into the shadows. Anko looked at the girl for a moment longer, before turning back to the Forest. "Go to the stall over there and collect a scroll, then go to your assigned gate and wait for them to be opened"

The Amazon team stood at one of the gates, the Sand siblings two teams to their left. they had the Heaven scroll, and Santana laughed, commenting on how ironic I was that they had the Heaven scroll.

Mia grinned at the siblings, who smiled warily back, except Gaara who just stared at her as if questioning which one she had. She smirked and looked up, indicating she had the heaven scroll. Gaara smirked also and looked to the floor, but indicated that he was not going to go after them but the team inbetween them instead. Mia just nodded.

"GO!" the gates shot open and the teams flew in, the girls stopped just a mile in and sat down so Mia could meditate.

'**Hello Child… tell your teammates to go on to the tower and I will take you to get a scroll'**

'_Thanks Dad'_

"Go on ahead to the tower, set up a camp, shout if you need me, I will meet you there" The girls nodded and shot off into the woods, Death having set out a trail of darkness for them to follow. Mia stood watching as darkness swirled around her and teleported her to a camp, the foreign ninja gasped, recognising her they tried to run.

But darkness grabbed them and held them down before throwing the Earth scroll to Mia, she winked at the panicking ninja, before being teleported to her teammates, who were 5 miles ahead of where they were previously. That was when the trio heard a sickening scream and blood seemed to rain down from the sky.

They looked to eachother and changed course for the screaming, they froze when they saw Gaara crushing ninja with his sand, totally unfazed. Mia was furious that the boy could kill without caring at all, so she stormed over ignoring the small pleas from Temari and Kankuro, she pulled her fist back and punched Gaara in the face again. Sending him flying, the sand released the bloody ninja who thanked the girl and threw her the Heaven scroll, before limping into the woods.

Gaara's eyes flashed yellow and he growled at her, she ignored him at threw the scroll at Temari, who caught it with ease. "We're heading to the tower, do you want to tag along?" they looked the Gaara who looked like he wanted to eat Mia's head.

They slowly nodded and followed the girls as the trail of darkness reappeared, leading them towards the tower. Suddenly a high-pitched scream sent a sharp pain through Mia's head, and she fell to her knees, Lara and Santana rushing to her side.

"Go on. There is something I need to do" they nodded and lead the Sand siblings towards the tower, looking worriedly towards their friend. Mia flew through the foliage, the smell of snake was in the air, but then it was gone and she came across Sakura crying over Sasuke, with Naruto s bit bloody next to her.

"What happened?" they looked up to her shocked, before more tears spilled down the pinkette's face, pulling at Mia's heart strings.

"Orochimaru, he bit Sasuke and this appeared" Naruto said showing Mia a circular seal, her dad told her that it was a curse seal, and Mia sighed throwing the team the scroll they needed, before setting the three onto a black tiger's back, before sending them towards the tower.

This forest was turning out to be more trouble than she had anticipated. She turned just in time for her to be struck in the chest with a sword that wielded light, only just piercing the darkness. She coughed up blood as the blade stuck out of her chest, before she grinned, the ninja was carrying the scroll she needed.

"You're going to die, you know" she muttered watching as a strong freezing wind whipped around the clearing they were in, the trees bending in from the force, before her father appeared to the world once again, he said nothing but opened his mouth and sucked, the ninja's soul was being sucked clean out of him, he fell limp against a tree.

Death stood and the Darkness that followed him dissolved the sword before healing the whole in her chest, she passed out from the blood loss, it had been a while since she had been harmfully touched, and her body had not taken it well.

Team 7 arrived at the same time as the Sand trio and the Amazon duo, Lara let out a strangled gasp when she saw Sasuke in the state he was, he slowly opened his eyes and pushed Sakura off of hi before reaching out to the blonde, she just smiled and held his hand, cradling him in her lap, waiting for her friend to arrive.

The Sand siblings went inside leaving the friends to stress over Sasuke, but when Santana cried out they turned to see what was up now, Temari held her hand over her mouth when Mia was carried towards the tower by a large black bird.

"Mia!" Santana ran over to the girl and took her from the bird's grasp, but the girl awoke with a start and fell out of her friend's arms, perfectly fine. She smiled sadly when she saw Lara and Sasuke, she pulled Lara away and let Team 7 enter the tower before them.

When they went in they were stood in an entrance hall, with a large sign on the wall. "What happened earlier Mia?" the girl sighed, she knew that this was coming sooner or later.

"A light sword from the Land of Snow, pierced my darkness and brought me to the brink of death, but then he turned up and killed the man, saving me" they nodded and looked to eachother and then to the two scrolls, the sign was a hidden message and they decided that they were to open the scrolls now.

The opened the scrolls and dropped them when they exploded into smoke, a figure stood amongst the smoke. "Leah-sensei!" the girls squealed and chucked themselves at their sensei who laughed and hugged them back. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to tell you that you have passed the second exam with ease and that your rooms to stay are up the right staircase, have a good boring few days in this tower" she winked and disappeared again, but not before giving Mia a concerned look.

The girls shrugged and walked up the stairs to see Kakashi carrying Sasuke out and into a separate room. Santana hung her arm around Lara's neck as they walked into the room that Sasuke had come out of, to see Naruto's scrapes being healed. He grinned when he saw the trio.

"Hey! Thanks for the lift Mia, you feeling better?" Mai nodded and sat down next to his make shift bed, before finding one next to him for herself.

"Yeah apart from the 4 day wait we have until we can leave, what fun that's going to be" they laughed and the medic left, leaving the kids on their own. It was going to be a very long wait.

It had been a day since the second exam had finished and luckily all of her friends had gotten through, but not fully unscathed. Poor Lee was stuck in hospital with many broken bones, Mia, Lara and Santana took turns visiting him each day. It was Mia's turn, and she took a bunch of daisy's in for him.

She gasped when she walked into the room, Gaara was frozen by Shikamaru's shadow jutsu and Naruto was standing there fuming. "What?"

They turned to look at Mia, who glared coldly at Gaara before walking over and touching Lee's forehead, placing the flower next to his bed. She turned and walked up into Gaara's face. "You try and kill me, now Lee what on Earth has he done?"

Then Gai was at the door, smiling softly down at Lee. "Now kids, you wouldn't want to get disqualified, so come on, you should be leaving" he looked pointedly at Gaara and then to the flower Mia had placed next to the sleeping boy. They all left and went their separate ways, Mia walking with Shikamaru and Naruto back to the group building.

"So tomorrow the third exam begins… I'm a bit nervous" Shikamaru said yawning, Mia nodded and went off to find her teammates, things were getting too fishy around here.


	7. Preliminaries

**Chapter 7 – Preliminaries **

Mia had gotten little to no sleep the night before the exams, the thought of Gaara trying to kill Lee was horrendous and it made her stomach churn with anger. She instead watching her teammates sleeping peacefully, she would personally murder anyone who dared to hurt her friends.

When their alarm went off, Mia jumped slightly and groaned, her head felt heavy and she had a dull ache in her lower neck. Lara and Santana were luckily very refreshed and nearly died when they saw Mia's demented look, she just groaned and washed her face, Death would keep her going.

Kiba snickered when Mia slouched over to them, clearly not in a good mood. "I feel sorry for whoever has to fight you" she just playfully glared at him and pushed him over sitting on his back. Sasuke was back with them, looking much better and Lara grinned when he subtly made space next to him for her to sit.

Neji was resting, probably preparing himself, and when the area around their group got full, Santana promptly sat on his lap, and ignored him when he glared at her back. He just muttered something inaudible and closed his eyes, not even opening them when she stretched and leaned back against his chest.

"Is anyone nervous then?" Lara asked leaning forward slightly, Naruto demanded that he was obviously going to win and Kiba scoffed.

As soon as the bulletin board was updated they went over to find that they were in the Hokage tower in one of the practice halls. When they arrived they found themselves in a large room, with upper viewing balconies. There was a large stone statue of hands performing a jutsu sign.

The Hokage suddenly appeared infront of the hands, with his officials. All of the Genin lined up in rows to hear him make a speech. "So you've all made it this far, if any of you see that you cannot proceed please raise your hand now" people glanced around and then one hand was raised.

Kabuto. Mia gazed meaningfully at Ibiki who nodded briefly to her, watching as the 'Genin' stepped forward. "I, Kabuto, wish to quit" he turned when Naruto let out a frustrated yell at the man he trusted, Mia felt a bit sad for her friend, he didn't know how evil he actually was. "I'm sorry Naruto, but my fight in the forest has taken a lot out of me"

He was about to leave when darkness grabbed him and squeezed slightly, he glared daggers at the wielder. Naruto tried to lunge at her, trying to convince her that Kabuto had done nothing wrong, but Santana dived at him, sending them skidding across the floor. Leah looked worriedly at her pupils from her place behind the Hokage.

"We have valid reasons to believe that you are a missing nin, Kabuto. You are under arrest" he chuckled darkly and winked at Mia before disappearing in a puff of smoke. She cursed and punched the wall next to her, he had gotten away, she could have just killed him. The wall cracked slightly under the force of her fist, the Hokage sighed and reassured the girl that he would be caught.

Santana let Naruto stand, apologising for her actions, he nodded and looked upset that Kabuto was a traitor. She walked back over to her team, and smiled softly at Leah who looked very proud of her team, Lara giggled at her obvious thoughts, she made no action to hide her pride.

"Anyway, you will stand on the balconies with your sensei and team until it is your turn to fight, you will be called down when it is your turn" they all flew onto the balconies, soon joined by their respecting Jounin, they all waited anxiously for the sign to tell them who was first.

First Match: Jamie Chang vs. Mia Thermador

Mia snickered, and fist bumped her team before chucking herself over the banister landing gracefully in the arena. The man that jumped down had long blue hair pulled back into a low ponytail, his eyes were a darker blue and held only hate for the girl before him, who just smirked and waved sarcastically.

"Let the match begin" the man lunged at her, long katana drawn she smirked and watched as he threw the sword at her, it disappeared into the darkness and he growled, now essentially weaponless.

His eyes glowed red and a viscous chakra swirled around him, trying to lash out at Mia, who just stood there and let the darkness protect her, it picked up the man and turned him upside down, shaking the man around a bit until the blood was rushing to his head and he passed out.

"The winner is Mia Thermador" Lara and Santana whooped, not really expecting much else, Mia just sauntered back up the stairs and to her team.

Second Match: Lara Yamanaka vs. Hiro Yoshi

Mia winked at Lara and patted her on the shoulder, Santana chuckled and grinned at her friend. "You better kick his ass, yeah?" Lara just shook her head and was surprised when she saw Sasuke staring at her with a glazed look in his eyes, but she shook it off.

The man who jumped down was about a foot taller than Lara and had many scars, he did not look like a Genin, Mia guessed that he had been stripped of his ranks, but Lara was practically a Jounin, she would be fine. And if she was about to die, Mia was sure as hell going to step in, unless the Jounin got there first.

"Begin!"

The man pulled out a large star shaped shuriken, she just smirked and reached behind her, darkness swirled and a huge sword appeared behind her back and she swung it infront of her. The man looked shocked for a second, but recovered quickly and threw the shuriken at her, she just held up her sword and blocked the shuriken with ease.

She gripped the handle with both hands and suddenly the sword split into two smaller swords, the man stretched his arms out to make some seal, that was the beginning of the end. Lara smirked and threw her swords at incredible speed, they lodged themselves in the man's hands and then into the wall. Pinning the man there.

She sauntered over and punched him in the face, a sickening crack sounded, it was obvious that his nose was broken, the man's head slumped forward and his body hung limp. He had been knocked out by Lara, she looked over to Hayate and he nodded.

"The winner is Lara Yamanaka"

Lara grinned and hopped back up only to be confronted by Ino. "You're a Yamanaka? Oh My God! I am too, why didn't you tell me before?" Lara just shrugged and patted Ino on the back, before bouncing over to her team who grinned at her. She ended up standing inbetween Santana and Sasuke, who 'accidently' brushed his hand against her's.

Third match: Sasuke Uchiha vs. Yoroi Akado

Lara smiled at the Uchiha who smirked back at her, he pushed himself off and jumped down, but Kakashi appeared behind his back and whispered something into his ear, that made the boy frown but nod. Mia watched, trying to figure out what was up with the Uchiha.

Suddenly a bright light flashed infront of her eyes, and pictures whizzed past her eyes, she saw a tall man with the same face as the one that Anko was talking to in the forest, then she saw Team 7, all bloody and fighting him, then lastly she saw Sasuke being bitten by the man, a seal appeared on his neck.

And just like that she was back, she winced and gripped her head, Leah put her hand on the girl's shoulder, looking down at her with concern. Mia just shook her head and looked back to the match to find that it was nearly over, though what confused her was that there was no chakra coming from the Uchiha.

The boy was instead using Taijustsu, the same things that she had seen Lee use. That was when she saw the same purple seal on his neck, she was about to ask Leah about it, but decided that she was to pretend not to have noticed it.

'**Mia… That is Orochimaru's curse seal, the boy is pained, it can take over his body if he uses chakra. Orochimaru had given it to him, so that the Uchiha would come to him at a later date… to seek power. That is not good for your friend'**

Mia thanked her father and glanced back to Lara who was watching intently, her brow slightly furrowed. Though, soon the match was over and Kakashi was rushing Sasuke out of the arena, and into a closed off room.

"The winner is Sasuke Uchiha"

Fourth match: Zaku Abumi vs. Shino Aburame

Shino's opponent had one arm in a sling, but Mia could clearly sense chakra running through it. As soon as Hayate said go, Zaku threw a kunai at Shino, who blocked it with his own. Bugs started to pour out of Shino's cloak, and Lara squirmed, snuggling closer into Santana who just laughed.

The bugs appeared behind Zaku and were charging at an alarming rate, but then Zaku pulled out his other arm and laughed cockily, thinking he had it in the bag, but he had to chose whether to fight Shino or the bugs, he chose Shino.

He stretched his arms, but nothing happened, his eyes widened and he pulsed his chakra harder, the bugs were blocking his chakra in his arms, making them swell up with every movement he made. There were a few screams when his arms exploded, sending bugs flying everywhere. One hit Lara in the face and she nearly died, before climbing gracefully onto Santana's shoudlers, needless to say the brunette wasn't very impressed.

"The winner is Shino Aburame"

The bugs retreated back to Shino and Lara slowly clambered down, looking carefully in case one had stayed behind.

Fifth match: Misumi Tsurugi vs. Kankuro

"If you lose Kankuro, I will kick your ass!" the boy smirked up at Mia, before curtsying sarcastically.

"Of course Princess" Mia rolled her eyes and grinned at the boy, she looked to his opponent, there was something about him that made the kunoichi frown.

The match began, and the man soon revealed that his bones bent to no limits. Mia looked to Santana who was trying to hold her laughter in, she raised an eyebrow, but when the man wiggled his arms around, she burst out laughing and fell over from the force.

Her laughter rang out through the hall, and Leah just shook her head, pretending that she wasn't with the trio. "Are you ok?" Santana just took a deep breath and nodded before letting Lara pull her back onto her feet.

"I'm gunna face the wall now" her friends just nodded, looking to eachother before looking back to the match. Kankuro was grinning up at them, but then the man had wrapped himself around Kankuro, and Lara felt that she couldn't help herself.

"RAPE!" the three of them burst out laughing again, and the man looked very annoyed. Leah covered her face with her hand, looking to a very amused Kakashi.

"Do you three need to leave?" the whole room was quiet and listening into their fit of giggles, they shook their head and tried to contain their giggles, they stopped instantly when a loud snap sounded through the room and Kankuro's body hung limp in the jelly man's arms.

Temari just smirked down at her brother and Mia was just staring at her friend like a fool. But then the head spun around to grin at the man, who looked shocked. Mia watched as Kankuro used his puppet to defeat his enemy. He grinned at Mia who just shook her head, not expecting him to disguise himself as the puppet. "The winner is Kankuro"

Sixth match: Sakura Haruno vs. Ino Yamanaka

Their friends looked shocked and glanced to the two rivals, before her head spun. She groaned and the last thing she saw was Santana reaching out to her, but she felt herself falling, before completely blacking out.

Mia woke up in a hospital bed, the sun was setting behind the trees. She felt fine, her head had completely recovered.

'**Glad to see you're awake Child… We were worried, you blacked out. That Gaara… nearly killed your friend, Lee'**

She felt anger surge through her, when she next saw him, he was not going to get out of it easily. Death warned her to be careful, before departing back into her head, leaving her with her thoughts. She jumped slightly when a nurse came in, she took her vitals before declaring that she could go.

When she was exiting the hospital she gasped when she saw the date, it had been two days since the preliminaries. The Finals would be in three days, she needed to relax, her head was getting to clogged up with information she shouldn't know.

She glanced out of the window, and nearly let out a startled cry when she saw Lee doing press ups, bandages covered almost his entire body. She jogged out of the building and over to the boy, a nurse was desperately trying to get him to stop.

"Lee" it came out as no more than a whisper, she fell to her knees next to the boy and when he finished his push ups, she caught him before he hit the ground. He smiled weakly at her, and she took a deep breath trying to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. "Let's get you inside" along with the nurse they helped Lee limp back into his room, before he collapsed into a deep sleep.

The nurse turned to her, smiling sadly at the torn look in her eyes. "Are you close with Lee-kun?" Mia nodded and looked up to the nurse, wanting to truth.

"Will he recover?" the nurse looked grim and placed a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"The Doctor has said he may never be a ninja again" something inside of her snapped, she nodded her thanks to the nurse and stormed out of the hospital, people moved out of her way, a dark atmosphere surrounded the girl.

Gaara was not going to get away with this…


	8. Losing Control

**Chapter 8 – Losing Control**

Mia gripped her head in pain, she could feel the darkness seeping into her bones, taking over her no matter what she did or said. She was angry with the red head, but killing him was going too far. She fought with every ounce of self-control she had, but it was useless and soon her body was consumed.

People hurried out of Mia's way in the street, her eyes were now a dark black, the darkness within had taking control of her, as much as she tried to fight it off. Soon she was at their community building, she stalked into the meeting room, hearing the frightened whispers.

"Mia? Calm down" Santana was standing, slowly taking little steps towards her teammate. Mia frowned when she saw that Gaara wasn't in the room, Lara had soon figured out who she was after, and moved to stand next to Santana, even with the protests of her friends.

"He didn't mean it, he lost control" Mia laughed sharply, before turning to leave, leaving her friends standing in the same spot, dumbfounded.

"Who?" Lara looked back to a confused Naruto, who was staring at the space where Mia had once been standing. "And why were her eyes black?" Santana and Lara sent eachother nervous looks, Santana jumped out of the window to go inform the Hokage and Leah if she could find her.

Lara sighed and went back to her friends, sitting next to Sasuke. "Gaara, she's obviously seen Lee. Her eyes are black because the darkness she controls has taken over, it wants Gaara dead" Naruto's mouth hung open, he hated Gaara for what he had done, but he knew that deep down, Gaara was just like him.

"Is there anything we can do?" This time it was Sakura, Lara shook her head, none of them stood a chance against the kunoichi at the best of times, nevermind when darkness was in control.

Everyone fell into a somewhat awkward silence as they prepared for the worst. They knew that if Mia didn't gain control again, Gaara would be no more.

Santana clambered her way up to the Hokage tower, the lady at the desk tried to stop her but Santana darted past, ignoring the angry yells that followed her. She pounded on the door, hearing muffled voices coming from inside. "Enter"

She pushed the door open, seeing a lot of Jounin in the room, her sensei included. "Sorry to disturb you Hokage-sama, but its urgent" Sarutobi nodded, leaning onto his desk. "It's Mia, darkness has taken over, she's going to kill Gaara" Leah swore and bowed to the Hokage before jumping out of the window, charging off to where her students chakra was.

She could feel more Jounin and Anbu following her, obviously not taking the situation lightly.

Mia slowly approached the field where Gaara was, it was now getting dark, and it was a half moon. She stopped when she reached the edge, coming face to face with the red head shinobi. He glared right back at her, not fearing the darkness seeping out of the tips of her hair.

"You've ruined an amazing boy's life, and for that you will die!" darkness wrapped around Gaara's neck, hoisting him into the air. The sand attempted to attack Mia, but failed, Gaara remained still, but his eyes were starting to hold fear and panic, making the kunoichi smirk, as if taunting the boy.

"You may have a demon inside of you, but the power I harbour is much worse" the darkness disappeared and Gaara fell to the floor, trying to hide his gasps for air, all the while glaring daggers at the girl.

"I will show you Shukaku!" he hissed, before hunching over in pain, his eyes turning into that of the demon's. The teens started fighting, the darkness blocking and countering every attack that was sent Mia's way, without her even having to move a muscle.

Suddenly a strong gust of wind sent both of the rivals flying towards eachother, they clashed and Mia ended up lying on top of the red head, sending his gourd rolling off to the side. Gaara growled at her, but Mia just grasped her head, groaning. When she opened her eyes, the darkness was gone, and her natural eyes was staring into Gaara's green ones.

"What happened?" Gaara went to sit up, but Mia was still lying fully on him and his lips crashed clumsily into hers. Time seemed to stop, Gaara didn't know what was going on, and Mia was shocked beyond belief. She pulled back and pushed herself into standing position, backing off a few feet. "Gaara, what happened?"

"You tried to kill me" She raised an eyebrow at how calmly he stated his near death. She glowered at the shinobi, remembering why she was angry in the first place, images of Lee flooded into her brain, making her wince internally.

"You hurt Lee, you ruined his life" Gaara shrugged, but his eyes held a strange sort of confusion.

"What was that? Just now." Mia choked on her own breath, she couldn't believe what she was hearing. Gaara had never been kissed, and he didn't know what one was.

She smiled softly. "It was a kiss, that for some reason YOU initiated" Gaara's eyes widened a fraction, and Mia guessed that he had heard of a kiss. But she also guessed that he had not meant to kiss her, but just get up instead. She sighed and held her hand out for Gaara to take, he stared at it before slowly reaching out an excepting the help.

"Look this is your last chance, I want to be your friend, but I won't keep trying if you're just going to push me away" Gaara didn't know what to say, the Shukaku wanted her dead, but she had helped him in ways he couldn't understand. Mia smiled and turned around before walking away again, leaving Gaara standing in the night.

Mia got back to the living building, and went straight to her room. Santana and Lara were already there, they looked worriedly at her but sighed with relief when they saw her eyes. Lara jumped up and pulled her friend into a hug, Santana grinned and joined them. "We were so worried, you didn't… you know"

Mia shook her head, before sitting down on her bed, the internal battle she had with darkness while it was in control had taken a lot out of her. "No, I got control just before" they nodded and each sat on their own bed, laughing like they used to.

Suddenly three ANBU appeared in their room, and glared down an unfazed Mia. Leah pulled her mask off and sighed, before knocking Mia gently on the head. "Silly girl, you could have gotten yourself hurt" Mia pouted and lay down.

"As much as I appreciate your company, since neither me or Gaara is injured I would like to get some much needed sleep" Leah scoffed but bid her goodbyes anyway and jumped out of the window, the other two ANBU said nothing and followed their sensei out of their room.

Santana sniggered and lay down, the three of them shortly falling into a deep sleep.

_Mia groaned and sat up, the floor was cold and hard. She glanced around, seeing nothing but s single candle at the end of the corridor. She stood cautiously and advanced down the corridor, until the candle was only a few feet infront of her._

_Suddenly a door appeared to her left, and low groaning was coming from behind it. She slowly turned the doorknob and stepped inside, bringing the candle with her. _

_A few smaller candles were dotted around the room, and in the centre of the back wall, was a familiar red head, he was chained to a wall, and a kunai was driven threw his chest. Mia choked out a cry and rushed over, he looked up to her, his piercing eyes dulled in the light. _

_The boy's gaze lifted to behind her, she turned to see Sasuke leaning casually against a wall. His skin was covered in tattoo like marks, and that smirk was still on his face._

_Mia started to shake and she lunged for the Uchiha, but everything around her disappeared and soon she was falling into a dark abyss. Dark laughter fluttered in the air around her, it was like everyone that hated her was watching her fall, she closed her eyes waiting for the impact._

Mia jerked upwards in fright, she was panting and a light coat of sweat covered her skin. Just a dream. She looked to her friends who were sleeping silently apart from Lara's odd mumble of a word, she stood, her muscles seemed to ache.

She splashed some cold water onto her face, before heading to the little window, and slipping out. She clambered up onto the roof, and sat on the tiles, staring up into the stars.

She jumped slightly when someone sat down next to her, she glanced to her left to see Gaara staring up at the sky too. She smiled softly and hugged her knees to her chest, the cold night air seeping through her PJs. Gaara was still fully dressed, but was now dressed in black pants and a black t-shirt, his gourd still on his back.

"You're up late" his voice was nothing more than a soft murmur, and if there had been any other noise, Mia was sure that she would have missed it.

"So are you" he looked at her and nodded solemnly, she look at him worried, he seemed to be a very sad person.

"I don't sleep, I can't or Shukaku comes out and kills everything" Mia nodded in understanding, a particularly cold gust sent a shiver down her spine. Gaara looked at the shivering girl, and hesitantly pulled her into his side, to give her some warmth.

Mia smiled and snuggled in, enjoying the warmth the older boy supplied. She could tell Gaara was still uncomfortable having human contact with her, but he was slowly accepting her into his life.

"So does this mean that you've finally accepted my offer?" Gaara sent her a glare and Mia laughed, but took it as a yes anyway. The skies were clear and the moon shone down, sending an eerie gloom over everything. It was almost to quiet, and Mia felt like she should brake it.

"Why are you so mean to your siblings. They are a precious thing to have, the closest thing I have to family at all are my friends. I would do anything to have a sister or a brother to fall back on" Gaara said nothing, and Mia assumed that he didn't know, he had just always treated and been treated that way.

"I never realised just how tall you three are" Mia smirked, and nodded.

"It must be something in the air because everyone back home is like this. Though we won't grow any more, we will be this height for the rest of our lives. So when you all have a giant growth spurt and grow taller than me, I will stay the same" Gaara raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Mia yawned again, and leaned fully onto the smaller boy, feeling sleep taking over her. "I better go back, before you get stuck with a sleeping me" Mia chuckled and wobbled to her feet, she smiled down at Gaara and leaned down to kiss his forehead.

He just watched her leave, and was again alone on the roof.

Mia slipped back into her bed, seeing that she still had four hours before anyone else would be up. She smiled softly and easily fell back into a dreamless sleep. She had a good feeling about the next part of the exams.


	9. Cravings

**Chapter 9 – Cravings**

Mia grumbled when somebody shook her awake, she blinked up to see Lara grinning down at her, a curious glint in her eyes. "Morning sleeping beauty" Mia groaned and rubbed her eyes, before slowly sitting up and glancing at the little clock, it read 11:02. "You slept a while"

Santana's gaze was playful and accusing, Mia shrugged not really wanting to mention her night chat with Gaara. "Is there any reason that the window was closed when we went to bed, but now it is open?" Mia rolled her eyes and walked over to the window, closing it before, picking her clothes up for the day.

"I went on to the roof, had a chat with Gaara, nothing more" Santana smirked and Lara giggled, before getting dressed themselves.

The trio sat in the kitchen, all eating different things, watching other teams file in and then out again. "I really want some chocolate spread" Mia groaned picking at her toast. Lara rolled her eyes and happily finished her cereal.

"You're going to make yourself diabetic from all of the crap you eat" Mia pulled a face and put the toast in the bin, Santana was eating an apple, looking very proud of her choice of breakfast.

"Whatever" Santana threw the apple core at Mia's head and promised her that she would buy her a pot of chocolate spread. Mia winked and brushed her hands on her pants as she stood, heading for the door. Lara and Santana said they would be up in a minute, she just nodded and sauntered into the meeting room.

Naruto grinned at her and waved enthusiastically, nearly taking Kiba's head off in the process. Mia smiled at him and waved back, before scanning the room, she grinned when she saw the trio she was after and walked over. Gaara glanced up to Mia, nodding at her. Temari and Kankuro looked terribly shocked at the friendly gesture and gaped as Mia sat down on the floor infront of Gaara, receiving no threatening reply from the red head.

"'Sup?" Gaara raised a non-existent eyebrow, a hint of curiosity shining in his eyes, that only Mia could provoke. Mia waved at the two siblings that had regained composure, who smiled softly, looking almost nervously at their brother, who didn't even spare them a glance.

"Stop looking at him like he's going to eat you, and if he tries, you come get me, I'll give him a good telling off" they all laughed except Gaara, who looked mildly annoyed.

Lara and Santana stuck their heads in the room, and waved Mia over, Santana pointing to her wrist, trying to tell Mia to hurry up. Mia groaned and stood, letting Kankuro pull her to her feet. She thanked him and stretched, sighing when her bones cracked a bit.

"You're in a good mood" Mia shrugged and winked at Gaara, who shook his head and went back to staring at nothing, whilst his siblings chatted to eachother, instead choosing to watch Mia was she disappeared out of the room.

Mia sat waiting on the wall of a fountain in the town square, waiting for Lara and Santana to come out of the shop's toilets. She sighed and closed her eyes propping herself up, she heard muttering from behind her, obviously about her.

She opened one eye and glanced over, seeing that they were other contestants, when they saw her looking one of them squealed and they all ran off. Mia shook her head and turned in time to see Santana and Lara coming out of the shop, Santana grinned and held up a bag, a small pot shape weighed the thin plastic down.

The duo walked over and sat down either side of their teammate, Santana handing the bag over to Mia. She took it and opened it up to see her favourite chocolate spread and a small plastic spoon on top of the jar. She grinned and pulled them out, crumpling the small bag up and throwing it into the nearby bin.

The jar opened with a pop, and she sighed as she spooned a bit of the smooth confectionary into her mouth, relishing in the way the sweet substance coated her taste buds.

"Honestly, I don't know how you eat that stuff, it's nasty" Lara sent Mia a look of mock disgust, and shook her head, standing. Mia and Santana soon followed, and they headed into a nearby corner store, to buy some crisps and ready-made sandwiches.

They headed in the general direction of the training grounds, where they heard the shouts of sparring matches. When they pushed through the overgrowth, they saw Naruto and Sasuke sparring in the centre of the field, Lee and Sakura sitting on the side-lines, chatting happily, but it was obvious that Sakura was more bothered about what Sasuke was doing.

Sasuke cast a glance at Lara, who looked away, slightly embarrassed when Sakura glanced curiously at her. Santana promptly sat herself down inbetween Lee and Sakura and easily struck up a conversation with Lee about something that Mia wasn't really paying attention to.

Instead she sat watching the fighting styles of the boys, and every now and again she would throw a comment into the conversation going on between the four around her.

'**The blonde boy, the kyuubi… his chakra amazes me, yet he does not use it. Keep a wary eye out child, I feel something coming, and it's not good'**

Mia pouted, and concentrated on her surroundings, hearing the scuttles of animals feet against fallen leaves, and the wind streaming through cracks in anything it could find. But no threatening chakra. She frowned, and instead looked around, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

"Mia!" She snapped out of her gaze, and looked back to Santana who raised an eyebrow in question, Mia just shook her head.

"Sorry what did you ask?" Lee asked again if she would show him how to become stronger, she nodded blankly and noticed that Naruto and Sasuke were done and were coming back over. She stood and followed Lee onto the field, she knew he was fast, but she was trained to be faster.

Lee charged at her without warning but she dodged and appeared behind him, flipping him to the floor within a matter of seconds. She heard Naruto mutter something in awe, but soon Lee was back on his feet and sending attack after attack her way, but she kept blocking and reversing his attacks against him.

But soon a kunai flew out of the forest, aiming at Mia's head. A wall of darkness flew up and absorbed the weapon, protecting Lee as well, who stared into the space where the kunai had come from. Mia glared at the approaching figure and the observers had come to join them on the field, all taking battle positions except for Mia.

"Don't panic, I mean you no harm" The voice was low and smooth, and well-practiced, showing next to no emotion. She heard Santana scoff, and mumble something under her breath that sounded like, 'you should have said that before you threw the bloody kunai'.

"Get lost!" Mia didn't take her eyes off the stranger, but silently willed Naruto to shut up. The man advanced again, and she could feel Lara and Santana tense, but she still remained as emotionless as him.

"Who are you?" This time it was Sakura, Mia could practically feel her nervousness about the man. He smirked and stopped about 5 metres infront of them.

"My name is Takumi Sasaki, and I and just here to survey the entries for the exams. But I better be on my way now" he saluted, and met Mia's glare, grinning before he disappeared in a puff of smoke. Nobody said anything for the first few seconds, but Naruto had to break the silence.

"What the hell was that about?" Mia let out a long sigh and shook her head, feeling rather confused.

"Just ignore it for now, but keep your eyes out for him" Mia muttered, before walking slowly out of the field, leaving her teammates and friends to themselves. She was very cautious about the mysterious man, but her curiosity got the better of her.

'_Dad, who was that man?' _Death had a book of names of those who had wronged, every crime that was committed was recorded in a book in the underworld, so if the man had wronged, the worse the better, he would know about it.

'**He has a few records of murder, they were missions from an unknown source. He comes from a small village a few miles away from Iwa, be wary, he seemed interested in you. Don't forget, I and watching over you, child'**

Mia nodded to herself, people had come to the Land of the Amazons, looking for her, they were from villages near Iwa too. As she walked around, she saw the Hokage Mountain, someone was sitting on top of it, and the redness of the hair made her smile. Gaara.

She quickly clambered up the rock, until she was stood behind the teen, who was sat at the edge, his eyes closed in thought. Mia sat down next to him, staring down at the people, they looked like ants from where she sat, busying themselves with this and that.

Gaara opened his eyes, and glanced at the girl next to him, who smiled at turned to look back at him. "Hey" He nodded at her greeting, and looked back down, concentrating on a figure who had stopped and seemed to be looking directly at the two of them. Mia seemed to notice his stare and followed it until her gaze fell on the man, she frowned, she was certain that it was Takumi. "Not him again"

Gaara raised an eyebrow in question momentarily removing his gaze to look at his newly found friend. Mia just shook her head, and quickly explained the drama on the field, Gaara listened and nodded every now and again, but when they looked back to the spot where the man had stood, they couldn't see him anywhere.

"Weird" Again the redhead nodded in agreement, but said nothing. "You don't say much very often do you?" Mia smirked as Gaara frowned and looked at her, crossing his legs.

"I only speak, when I deem it necessary. I just have nothing to say" Mia grinned and nodded, lying on her stomach, watching as the clouds rolled across the sky, blocking the glare of the sun.

"I'm gunna head back, it's getting a bit chilly. You coming?" Gaara nodded and stood, offering his hand awkwardly to Mia, who smiled softly and took it, letting the smaller boy to pull her to her feet, before the two of the strolled down the mountain.

Lara, Santana, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and Lee were walking back to their accommodation building. Sasuke and Lara were at the back, walking in silence, silence had said nothing about the 'incident' since it had happened, and had only sent meaningful glances at Lara, who pretended not to notice.

They soon arrived, and they all went their separate ways, Lara told Santana not to eat as she was making stir-fry for whoever wanted it. Sasuke followed her silently into the kitchen as she gathered everything she needed to make the dish.

She let out a startled squeal when she turned, to find Sasuke sitting at the table behind her, gazing at her. "When did you get here?" Lara shook her head and turned back to the wok, feeling uncomfortable under the intensity of Sasuke's stare. "What do you want Sasuke?"

He shrugged, not really knowing what to say. Lara huffed and chopped angrily, she didn't hear when Sasuke stood and walked over, until he asked her if she wanted any help. She sighed and told him to continue chopping the veg, she was going to make the sauce.

The meal was soon finished and Mia had turned up with Gaara, just in time to grab a plate before everyone else took it all.

Everyone left as they finished, leaving Sasuke and Lara to finish up. Lara picked up her plate, and took Sasuke's too, walking over to the sink and washing them. They had been told to clean up after themselves or they would have to find food elsewhere.

As she turned around to leave, Sasuke's hands landed either side of her hips, on the work surface. She was taller than him, but that didn't seem to spoil his mood. He leaned in, and Lara held her breath, waiting, their lips soon came together in a soft kiss. After a few seconds he pulled back, and looked into Lara's eyes, with a calculating gaze.

"What was that for?" it came out as a whisper, but she knew he had heard it. He smiled briefly and pushed himself away, never breaking their gazes.

"I felt like it" he turned and left, leaving Lara alone. She cursed him, and felt a wave of déjà vu flowing over her. "arrogant bastard", Santana and Mia were holdin back giggles as they ran back to their room, they had waited behind for their teammate and had witnessed everything.

They were going to grill Lara later, there was no way she could deny her liking for the Uchiha now.


	10. Midnight Murders

**Chapter 10 – Midnight Murders**

**Sorry for the lack of updates, my dog broke my laptop and it had to get sent off, so I was without a computer for a while…**

_Mia lay on the floor, her eyes fuzzy and unclear. She pushed herself up, before her muscles gave way and she was on the floor again, she gasped when she saw a pool of blood spilling out from her side, pain she didn't even know was there suddenly shot up into her head, making her queasy. _

_She looked up and the ceiling began to dissolve, showing the black of the night sky, only a full moon to give her any light. _

"_You try to kill me, you will now die…" she let out a strangled cry when she saw Gaara standing over her, but he morphed into a demon-like creature, with dry sand coloured skin._

_She tried to talk to him, to ask what she had done, but no words came out, her mouth didn't move an inch. Her body wouldn't do what she wanted, but them it occurred to her, she wasn't herself, she was in somebody else's body._

_She felt herself let out an involuntary scream, as claws came down at her._

Mia shot up, her hair sticking to her head, she looked out of the window, and saw the exact same scene she had saw in her dream. She was hot, and didn't want to go back to sleep, she stumbled out of bed and pulled on her shoes, clambering out of the window.

She climbed to the roof, and gasped at what she saw, the contestant she remembered as Dosu, a sound ninja, lay bloody on the floor, the scene was replayed in her head, she was him. Gaara didn't even glance at her, instead the monster emerged and Mia looked away as Dosu was murders under the full moon.

The Shukaku turned his red eyes to Mia, who shivered lightly and searched for Gaara in it, but found none of him. "Gaara" it came out as a whisper and she jumped when a throaty laugh erupted from the beast, it's eyes twinkled with dark amusement.

"_Gaara isn't here anymore, no matter how many times I tell him to kill you he won't" _Mia gagged at the smell of the body, and moved around it, so she was on the centre of the roof. _"Think you're something special eh? Well you're going to die here tonight"_

She breathed a sigh, but didn't move to attack. "You won't be able to hurt me, and you know it. Let him do the exams, you're not worth my father's time"

The Shukaku's eyes hardened and he threw a punch in her direction, she didn't even flinch when the darkness came up to block it off. It creeper up the sandy arm, and began to squeeze, the Shukaku groaned and cursed her before morphing back into the teenage boy she knew.

The darkness retreated, finding no threat, Gaara slumped to the floor, gasping for breath. Mia rushed over and knelt down beside him, pulling his head into her lap, she whispered soothing words to him as he recovered his breathing and opened his eyes, to stare up blankly at her.

"You ok?" he nodded slowly, and sat up, staring out into nothing, a tired look on his face.

"I lost control over him, I let him take over" Mia nodded but said nothing, not really knowing what to say without offending the boy.

She doesn't know how long they sat there, but she yawned and Gaara stood, telling her to go back to bed. She stood and gave him one last glance before clambering back in the window and sliding into the bed, falling into a dreamless sleep.

"Mia wake up!" eyes blinked open, to find Lara leaning over her, a look of worry in her eyes. Sitting up, she sighed and stretched her muscles, they ached from sitting in the cold for that long.

"What's happened?" Santana was making her bed, a plate of food next to her.

"You slept in a while again, we were worried. Dosu was murdered on the roof last night, and the preliminary proctor, Hayate Gekko, was also murdered last night, but we don't know who by" Lara said, looking at Mia with an almost knowing look, a look that said 'we know you know something'.

'**Child, it was Baki, Gaara's sensei, that murdered Hayate Gekko. Baki was consulting with Kabuto, and Gekko heard, so he was disposed of, what they were discussing is unknown though'**

"Father just told me, that Baki killed Gekko, and I already knew that Gaara killed Dosu" their eyes widened, their mouths hung in unasked questions. "Baki, Gaara's sensei, was discussing something unknown with Kabuto, and Gekko overhead, so he was killed. Dosu tried to kill Gaara, and the Shukaku took over and killed Dosu, I was there, it tried to kill me too"

They nodded slowly, and glanced around nervously, as if asking what to do. "We keep silent, until Baki makes a move, then we'll do something, I don't think he'll do anything before the finals have happened, until then we wait"

Santana sighed, picking up the plate of food, and handed it to Mia "breakfast, you need it" Mia smiled and took it graciously, picking at the bits of food.

"But I thought Gaara was nice, I didn't think he would ally with that monster of a man" Mia clenched her fists, putting the plate on her bed. "By all of the power that has been bestowed in me, I will make this right"

Mia had promised Lee she would visit him again, before the finals started. She slowly walked towards the hospital, watching as day patients arrived and left. When she reached his room, the doors were slightly ajar and there was shouting going on inside.

She heard Naruto, and Shikamaru, shouting at someone else in the room, but surely it couldn't be at Lee. She pushed into the room, gasping when she saw sand swirling around Lee's sleeping body, Gaara standing, a look of rage on his face. He was frozen.

Shikamaru held the same pose, his shadow connecting him to Gaara, Naruto stood at his side. "I don't care if you're like me, if you have a demon in you, like me. You have no right to kill an innocent person, you've done enough to Lee"

"Gaara? Why?" Gaara lifted his eyes to look at her, a look of something unusual in his eyes, but he said nothing. He had already told her too much, and they both knew it, he knew that she had been told too much, for his own good and for hers.

A strong hand on Mia's shoulder made her jump, she spun to see Gai staring at Lee, the sand began to retreat back to Gaara, he looked on with disappointed eyes, walking over to Lee.

"I think it's time for all of you to leave" Gai didn't take his eyes of his pupil, but he knew that they had left as soon as he said to.

Mia sat atop the Hokage mountain, staring blankly down at the street.

She was so angry at Baki, and at Gaara, though she had no proof that he actually had any knowledge of what Baki had done. He killed Dosu, because Dosu tried to kill him, and Shukaku took over.

She was angry at herself, if she had just killed Kabuto, then none of this would be happening.

She, for that split second, wished she was home, in the Land of the Amazons, where nothing was complicated. She wasn't ridiculed or frowned upon where she came from, for who she was brought up by. But everywhere else she went she felt like an outcast.

The one that should dead.


	11. Finals

**Chapter 11 – Finals**

**I apologise for skipping over the matches, but it would take to long… **

The trio stood outside of the arena, all giddy with excitement, this was their chance to shine. They took deep breaths and walked in, seeing the audience there to view them. When their village leader, Lady Reina, smiled warmly at them, them bowed and headed into the centre of the grounds, where everyone else was gathered, minus Sasuke.

"Where's Uchiha?" Santana glanced at Lara, who shrugged, a pink tinge to her cheeks.

"Probably ran off to train with some pervert" Mia said, grinning when Lara scowled and ignored her. They lined up on the edge, anxiously waiting for the results to show up, as to who they would be fighting. Mia had a sneaky feeling, that she would end up with the scarred man on the end, who looked very out of place next to kids.

"Stop looking around, keep your eyes on the customers" The proctor said, not even turning to look at them. Mia hated that term, it made them sound as if they were prizes to be won.

"Welcome to the Hidden Leaf Chunin Exams! Please stay to watch all 6 matches" The Hokage's voice rang through the arena, silencing most of the chatter in the crowd. The proctor held out a sheet, with the orders of fights on it. It read:

Naruto Uzamaki v. Neji Hyuuga

Sasuke Uchiha v. Gaara

Lara Yamanaka v. Santana Dean

Mia Thermador v. Kenta Satou

Shino Aburame v. Kankuro

Temari v. Shikamaru Nara

"Would the first two contestants remain on the grounds, the rest must move up to the stands" Mia patted Naruto on the back and followed the others up the stairs, she could feel eyes boaring into her back. She knew that Naruto was not the bookies favourite, they all thought he was going to get smashed. But she knew, that Naruto was not to be underestimated, she had a sneaky feeling that he would win.

She took a seat inbetween her teammates, on the front row of seats. There was a presence nearby that was unnerving her, she glanced around and frowned, ANBU were all over the place, standing at the back of the stands.

She shook her head and concentrated on the match, listening in to their conversation. "Looks like you have something to say" Neji said, a smirk clear on his face.

Naruto growled slightly, his brow furrowed. "I told you before… you're definitely going down" Mia smiled and leaned onto the barrier, blocking the battle field from the crowd.

"Now the first fight! Begin!" Neji took his stance, his smirk grew, Mia scowled at him, and she was sure he knew about it.

"Hehe… that's what makes this worthwhile, it will be fun to watch you fall apart when you discover reality" Naruto, already having taking his stance, scoffed, and crouched.

"Stop all the blabbering, let's fight!" Naruto grinned cheekily, and Mia glanced up to the Hyuuga clan, to see Hinata's father talking to her sister, Hanabi.

Mia looked back to the match to find Naruto had made 4 kage bunshins of himself, she smiled at the confused looks of most of the jounins' faces.

This was going to be a good match…

There was a stunned silence when Naruto let a burst of chakra out, after his points had been sealed. Nine tails flailed around behind him, Mia gasped, The Kyuubi.

When Neji and Naruto collided, a huge explosion racked the field and stands, sending dust into the air. When it cleared, Neji wobbled out of the hole he had created, Naruto lay motionless opposite him. Neji muttered something about a loser, but Naruto bust out of the ground infront of Neji and punched his jaw.

Neji flew up, blood spewing out of his mouth, Mia sighed with relief, Naruto was ok. Neji was paralyzed on the ground, but was able to speak, Naruto started talking about Kage Bunshin, Neji looked shocked and confused as did everyone else.

"Winner, Naruto Uzamaki!" Mia jumped up and cheered, along with Lara, Santana and Sakura. He grinned cheekily up at them, as if he had known he was going to win this way all along.

Sasuke still hadn't shown up, Mia frowned and glanced at Lara who looked nervous and fidgety.

"He'll turn up, don't worry" The other contestants were around them, Gaara was standing a few feet to the left of them, looking angry. Mia ignored him, she still had not forgiven him or Baki for the other night.

"If he doesn't show up soon, he'll be disqualified" Lara said, leaning on the banister. Naruto stood inbetween Gaara and Lara, shuffling away from the red head.

'**The match had been postponed'**

"The match has been postponed, it will happen later" everyone gave her questioning looks. "I have sources"

Soon a voice boomed over the complaints, "The match between Sasuke Uchiha and Gaara, will be postponed until later" She grinned, but soon if fel off and she looked to her teammates.

"What?" Santana looked confused as to why Mia was worried.

"You two are up" their faces fell, before Santana grinned and winked at Lara.

"No holding back ok?" they shook hands and when the announced called them down, they jumped over the banister, taking their places on the battle field.

"Begin!" Santana instantly created a full body suit of earth armour, minus the head piece. Lara chuckled and stepped back a few paces.

"You wanna play that way eh?" she turned to the proctor "I suggest you leave the court, or you may be the one in hospital" he gave her a funny look, but sauntered off any, muttering something about ungrateful kids, not wanting the protection they are offered.

Lara set herself on fire, flames covering her whole body. The audience gasped at their methods of protection. "Let's dance" the final bit of armour covered Santana's head, blocking her off from any kunai.

Both of them leapt into the air, spinning and sending waves of fire and rock at eachother, the other one cancelling it out. There was a silence over the crowd, as they took in the methods the benders used. Lara pulled her sword out of the darkness Mia provided, and split it into two. The swords caught the flame, and was like her body. Santana scoffed an pulled out 4 senbon needles, per hand. A strange liquid covered them, dripping onto the floor.

They charged at eachother the ground shaking under the armour. Lara swung her sword and it smashed off the armour, breaking a few bits of earth off it, but they soon reattached themselves. They leapt right next to eachother and the force of their attacks created and explosion throwing them backwards. Santana's armour created a dent in the wall when she hit it, but Lara smacked against the floor.

The armour disintegrated and Lara's flames went out. They were equal once again and Lara laughed, standing, watching as Santana eyed up the dent and rubbed the back of her neck. "Hurry up you two!" Mia yelled at them, smirking, Santana stuck her tongue out at her, and Lara shook her head.

Mia heard people muttering about how they should have been put up for Chunin a while ago. Some glanced to her, before muttering about her upcoming match.

After another 15 minutes of equal fighting, they began to get worn out, stumbling around, throwing insanely strong moves at eachother, and countering each one. They both fell to their knees, panting, blood and sweat dripping down them.

Mia heard the Hokage's men talking to the proctor who nodded and made his way onto the field. "Due to the equal talent of both contestants this match is deemed a draw" The girls grinned and smiled at Mai when darkness healed their wounds, stopping the medics in their tracks.

They stood shook hands, and walked back to the stands, their arms slung over eachother. When they reached the stands, the cheering and clapping had died down, and Mia hugged her friends, congratulating them on an exciting match.

"you better not lose mind, our reputation is on the line" Santana prodded Mia on the nose, who scoffed and flipped her hair, before returning to the rails.

"Of course not" her opponent eyed her up, before returning his gaze to the floor.

"Can Mia Thermador and Kenta Satou come to the field please" Mia cracked her knuckles and winked at her friends.

"Wish me luck" Naruto beamed at her and did just that, Santana scoffed and fist bumped Mia.

"As if you need it" Lara smiled at her, and watched as she jumped over the railing, landing opposite her opponent. He glared at her, his muscles clearly shown through his clothes, she was glad that she got him, otherwise the other contestants would have gotten him.

"Begin!" The man pulled out two large circular blades, spikes all the way around it. Mia just stood there waiting, he threw one of them and darkness engulfed it. He growled and charged forward, Mia smirked and spun around him, topping his speed.

She grabbed the back of his shirt and threw him into the wall, satisfied with the grunt the man emitted. "Is that all you got?"

He summoned a large spider, that was larger than the man himself. She heard Santana squeal, and Kankuro curse as she clambered onto his head, demanding that Mia kill the beast.

The ground began to shake, and Mia climbed half way up the wall, a huge snake head popped out of the ground, as large as half of the battle grounds. The man began to shake lightly, and more spiders flooded the stadium, ganging up on the snake.

The snake was black, and most of the competitors could have sworn it was the same snake she had been carrying around the other day, just a hell of a lot bigger. And it was.

Death had decided to help out, in the form of the snake. A wave of venom erupted from the mouth of the snake, dissolving everything in the grounds. The snake hissed and disappeared back into the earth, the ground reforming itself where the hole had once been.

The man held fear in his eyes as he hesitantly returned to the floor, Mia following with confidence.

She breathed deeply and slowly spun around, channelling to the local water sources, until she could feel the earth shaking once again as the water pressure went up and flew towards the stadium.

She heard worried mutters and gasps as the air became damp, and water surrounded the stadium, trapping everyone inside. "Sweet dreams" she let go of the control and the water plunged down into the field, filling it up to the brim.

Darkness created a bubbled around her, so she did not get wet, but the other man could not surface, and began to drown. The earth opened up and the water drained away, leaving a choking man lying on the floor. The proctor returned to the grounds, eyeing Mia up who smiled and shrugged.

"The winner is Mia Thermador" cheers and hoots were heard and steps of darkness led up to the railings. She clambered up and hopped over the railing.

Lara and Santana grinned and patted her back.

The next match was Shino v. Kankuro.

Mia looked to Kankuro, who was glancing around nervously, he shared a look with Temari, before raising his hand and shouting down. "I forfeit" Mia nearly choked on her own breath.

"What?" she looked at him as if he had grown another head, he scratched the back of his neck and shrugged.

"So Temari you're –" Kankuro couldn't even finish his sentence before Temari jumped over the side, onto her fan, and glided down to the field.

Shikamaru muttered something and was about to make his way down, when Naruto slapped him over the back, wishing him luck, but managed to push his friend over the side of the barrier and flat on his face onto the battle field.

Mia smiled, when the match began, she could feel an interesting one in the makings.

Shikamaru, soon managed to connect his shadow to Temari's, Mia knew that he had a good IQ, and he was using it.

"I give up" Shikamaru raised his hand, looking incredibly bored.

"What?" Temari shrieked at the boy, she was looking forward to a match. Chouji laughed and stuffed his face full of chips.

"One match is enough for me, plus my power only has about 10 seconds left. So I give up" The proctor shook his head and declared Temari the winner.

Naruto chucked himself over the side, in a fit of rage. "Shikamaru would make a great leader, Mia go after Naruto, I'm worried for Shikamaru" Mia sighed but nodded and followed Naruto, as he began to yell at Shikamaru. Mia reached the boys, and thunked Naruto over the head.

'**Lee is here'**

Mia smiled, it was good to hear that Lee was up and about. Her attention returned to the field, when a leaf descended from the sky, and hit the floor. A tornado of leaves appeared in the centre of the field, sending a gust of wind towards them.

Sasuke and Kakashi were in the remains of the tornado.

"Name?" the proctor asked, a smirk on his face.

"Sasuke Uchiha" Mia rolled her eyes, after all the time he wasted, what an attitude. But then she saw his hair, and started laughing, tears forming in her eyes. Sasuke scowled at her. "What?"

"Y-Your hair!" she was crippled with laughter and she could hear Santana was the same, but Lara just seemed annoyed at the two of them.

"It's good to hear you laugh again, a good sign of youth" Mia stopped laughing in an instant, to grin up at Lee from his place in the stands, she waved at him and wiped the tears off of her face.

"let's go guys, give girly some space" Sasuke muttered something darkly, as Mia led the two boys off. When they reached the stairs, Naruto was about to run up, but Shikamaru couldn't be bothered with walking nevermind running.

Naruto suddenly froze and told the other two to be quiet, Shikamaru whispered something about being a hypocrite, and walked next to Mia and Naruto, who were peering cautiously over the side of the top of the stairs. There was two people standing infront of Gaara, who was trying to make his way down to battle field.

They were trying to get Gaara to lose the match, for their betting sakes, Mia looked away when blood splattered the wall. The froze and moved away from their view point, And Gaara soon walked past them as if they weren't there.

They quickly made their way up to the stands, to watch the last match.

"Begin!" Gaara winced and started talking to his 'mother', an obvious blood lust in his eyes as sand poured out of his gourd. Sasuke darted back, his speed nearly matching Mia's.

"He wants Sasuke's blood" Mia whispered, reality dawned on her. Santana and Lara looked at her confused. "Shukaku, the demon in him, he wanted my blood, but he couldn't kill me. Now he wants Sasuke's" She groaned and shifted past people to get to the railings, she had to be close enough to intervene if need be.

She coughed, her head throbbing, she could feel Kabuto's presence near, and it made her feel sick. Next think she knew Kakashi and Gai were standing over her, as she fell to the floor. This was the second time she had blacked out.

She awoke with a start about 5 minutes later, just to see lightning pulse through Sasuke's hand as he penetrated Gaara's sphere of sand, her eyes widened and she gripped the railing, as Gai's hand came onto her shoulder, she could hear him ask her something, but the words were a blur, she couldn't hear anything but the dripping of blood.

Suddenly people started collapsing all around her, darkness encased her, and soon disappeared, showing that nearly everyone has passed out.

A smoke bomb went off in the Kage box, and panic rose amongst those who had managed to stay awake. Santana and Lara were asleep on the stand floor.

The ANBU flew into the air, killing two ninja that tried to run. But the Kazekage jumped into the air, holding a kunai to the Hokage's neck. Suddenly a barrier was around the two, as four sound ninja stood at each corner.

'**That is not the Kazekage, it is Orochimaru, Kabuto's leader'**

She looked around to Kakashi and Gai, "It's Orochimaru" Their eyes widened, and they looked up to the roof top, where the Hokage was held.

The proctor leapt infront of Sasuke, as Baki landed infront of Gaara, Mia hissed at him, and he knew it, he stared at her, calculating her gaze. Before saying something to Gaara as Temari and Kankuro joined them on the field.

"Abort the mission" Mia cursed and frantically looked to Gai who was talking to Kakashi in hushed voices. "Take Gaara and retreat"

The trio leapt over the side of the stadium and out into the forests. Sasuke hurried to follow them, and Kakashi looked at him. Mia cursed and charged after Sasuke, ignoring Kakashi's calls.

Mia could feel Sakura, Shikamaru and Naruto following her and Sasuke, but they had a dog with them, one of Kakashi's ninja dogs she guessed.

She felt Sasuke's movements stop not so far ahead of her, she pushed to get to him but he soon took off again. When she arrived in the spot where he had been, Shino and Kankuro were about to fight. Mia looked at Kankuro blankly. "I actually liked you" Kankuro looked away "Guess I was too much a stupid little kid then?"

She didn't wait for his answer, instead took off again after Sasuke.


	12. The Great Chase

**Chapter 12 – The Great Chase**

**I changed this a bit, so Mia wouldn't be useless.**

Mia was gaining on Sasuke and she knew it, he had stopped again, but this time Gaara was there, and so was Shukaku, Gaara was letting it out.

She cried out as a shooting pain shot through her head, she fell to her knees, she saw flashing images of Sasuke and Gaara, and her dream reappeared to the front of her head. She shook her head, she had to continue no matter what.

Stumbling to her feet she took slow steps, it was not enough, but it was better than nothing.

Mia managed to get to the fight just as Naruto and the others did, but Shikamaru was missing, she frowned when she saw Gaara, and worry washed over her when she saw Sasuke limping away as Naruto kicked Gaara in the face, sending him stumbling back a few paces, he was not fully transformed, but he was still frightening.

Sakura rushed over to Mia and Sasuke, bending down to examine him, Mia looked back to Gaara and Naruto, she knew she had to help, she was less likely to die than Naruto.

Suddenly Gaara had Sakura trapped under Shukaku's hand against a tree, slowly crushing her. Mia punched Gaara in the face, pushing him away from the Uchiha on the tree. "Mia help Sakura and heal Sasuke, I'll deal with Gaara" Mia frowned but nodded, knowing that Naruto would not change his mind.

Darkness broke the hand away from Sakura, and she fell to the branch, landing infront of the bleeding Uchiha. Mia noticed the broken seal on his neck, and resealed it, letting darkness flow over his wounds, healing and cleaning them. He coughed and she quickly moved onto Sakura, wanting to get to Naruto as soon as possible.

By this point Gaara had fully transformed, and Naruto was staring up at him, a look of determination in his eyes. That boy was something special.

But something caught Mia's eyes, Temari was leaning against a tree, holding her stomach, she looked sadly on at her brother, before her gaze met with Mia's cold one. Temari opened her mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out. A look of sorrow and guilt on her face.

Mia felt bad for her, and hopped over, healing her wounds without a word, Sakura had taken her place back next to Sasuke, soothing him, whether he liked it or not.

She gasped when Naruto was flung away, but Temari gripped her arm, shaking her head. Mia looked back over to find Naruto back on his feet, the Shukaku looked at Mia a horrid grin on it's sandy face.

When Naruto shoved a kunai up Shukaku's backside, Mia's eyes flew open wider, 'what the hell is he thinking'. The tail smacked Naruto away, but the kunai began to fizzle and soon there was an explosion. Mia ran and ended up catching Naruto, just as Sasuke went to do the same, the three of them smacked into the tree, looking on into the dust.

Naruto nodded at Mia who threw Sasuke back over to Sakura, as Naruto summoned Gamabunta, the pair stood on his head, well above the trees. They were opposite the Shukaku.

"Hold on!" they each gripped as Gamabunta leapt into the sky flying over Shukaku's head. The Shukaku laughed and soon Gaara emerged from out of the top of it's head, mimicking Naruto and Mia's position on Gamabunta.

The rest went as a blur and soon Naruto looked at Mia, who looked at him questioningly. "You have to snap it out of him, I need to get to Sasuke, find a way" Naruto jumped off and Mia was thrown onto the top of Shukaku, infront of a 'sleeping' Gaara.

She punched him and nothing happened, Gamabunta was pushing against Shukaku, who was pushing back just as hard.

She did the only thing she knew would shock him, grasping his face she smashed her lips against his, feeling the chapped skin. His eyes slowly opened and the Shukaku beneath them began to disappear and dissolve, letting them fall toward the forest. Naruto thanked Gamabunta, and soon the giant toad was gone.

They crashed into the ground, Gaara was bloody and Mia had broken an arm, but the darkness was healing it. Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura soon came over, staring at the two.

Mia slowly looked around, to find that Temari had ran off, leaving them to fight.

Naruto knelt down beside Mia, helping her sit up. But suddenly Temari and Kankuro landed next to Gaara, who still lay motionless on the forest floor.

Mia heard Gaara mutter a sorry, she didn't know who to, but it was there. Temari and Kankuro looked shocked, and Kankuro nodded at Mia and jumped off with Gaara in his arms, Temari following closely behind him.

'**The Hokage… was murdered by Orochimaru, and he got away'**

Mia screamed out her rage, terrifying the three around her. She punched the tree and whispered. "He's dead"

Mia, Santana and Lara stood, along with the ninja of Konoha, wearing black. It was the funeral of the third Hokage, and there was tears all around them, she reached out and took Naruto's hand in hers as tears streamed down his face.

He started talking to Iruka and Konohamaru, as the grandson of the third wept next to him, grieving over his loss.

'**I have a present for you back at home, you will like it. Oh and congratulations to you and your team, you all made Chunins'**

Mia smiled and mentally thanked her father, she always liked his presents, they were rare and mystical, something only he could obtain. But the dread and fear of Orochimaru's power was nagging her, forcing back into reality, with Naruto crying beside her, as the coffin was removed from the funeral, just as a heavy downpour started, syncing with everybody's moods.

But then it struck her, they were leaving, going back home, she had almost forgotten about home, where there was no boys to fight, just other girls, most of them more concerned about their nails or hair than anything else.

Slowly people began to file out of the funeral, like black ants scurrying around, trying to make themselves useful. "We need to pack" Lara and Santana nodded, walking with Mia back to their accommodation, for one last time.

"We all became Chunin though" small smiles could be seen on each of their faces, they had worked way to hard not to get it. Lara and Santana had been quickly informed on the whole battle between Gaara and Mia and Naruto, they were shocked, but proud of their teammate, Mia never backed down from the scariest fight.

They soon had their bags packed, and were standing outside of the building, they caught sight of everybody coming towards them, small smiles that didn't reach their eyes on their faces. They soon slipped off when they saw the trio standing, bags at the ready.

"I forgot you didn't live here" Kiba said, scratching the back of his neck. "It'll be a shame not having you 'round"

Mia nodded and laughed when Naruto launched himself at her, dragging her into a bone-crushing hug, soon moving on to her teammates. Soon all goodbyes had been said, and they were heading towards the gates of Konoha, Lee had come with them, to see them out.

"Goodbye ladies, have a safe journey home" Lara smiled and hugged him.

"Keep safe yourself Lee, you ever need anything give us a call" Santana winked and hugged the bandaged boy too, letting Mia have the last word, they shuffled away, so the two had some privacy.

"If he comes back, take care, don't be stupid, and no matter what the doctors tell you, I believe you will succeed and return as a great ninja" Lee's eyes watered as they embraced, Mia felt she had gained a true friend in Lee, and she was glad, he was a gentle soul.

"Goodbye Lee" Mia smiled stepping back a few paces, and hiking her bag further onto her back.

"Goodbye Mia" Lee waved until the trio was out of sight, slouching down the gravelly road, towards home, but not that they would ever tell anyone, it didn't feel like home anymore.


	13. The Present

**Chapter 13 – The Present**

The next day, the trio stumbled upon the gates to the Land of the Amazons, the two guards grinned and saluted them, they returned the gesture and walked back into the forest, their Land was truly beautiful. There was a path leading to the main square, the path was lined with trees, with candle lit fairy lights decorating them, giving the path a calming yellow hue.

Squirrels and birds lived amongst the trees, so the wildlife seen every day was rich. Once you reached the main square, log buildings were everywhere, local stores and health related businesses were in the main square, along with the town hall and Lady Reina's tower at the far end.

Again the lights were placed outside of the doors and large street lamps were places every few metres. There were a few rings of flats and houses, which circled the city centre. The city centre was surrounded with many acres, little estates were spaced around the forests, little communities with houses and parks. Some of the houses were built into the trees, hanging high above the ground level.

Tree top bridges linked between tree to tree, leading back to the city square, there was also a foot path, but many people took the rope bridges.

Mia, Lara and Santana all lived in the main city centre, in a house they shared with eachother, Lara and Santana having moved out of their families homes to show some independence. The trio headed towards the tower, to let Lady Reina know they were back. She always insisted on knowing where everyone was, her natural motherly instincts taking over.

When they knocked on her office, she called them in a smile on her face. "Welcome back, your performances were exceptional. I'm sorry I had to leave earlier than I would have liked, I heard about the attack" she looked at Mia a look of pride in her eyes. "I also heard about your bravery, as you fought the Shukaku"

The three soon had smiles on their faces too, Reina's energy was relaxing and made everyone feel good, no matter the weather or event. "And I am delighted to inform you, you have all been moved up to the rank of Chunin. I am delighted to hand you your jackets"

She pulled out three greenish jackets, symbolizing their new rank. She handed them over, watching as each of them slipped them on, and zipped them up. She gave them with a week off as a congratulations present.

"Oh and before you go, a package arrived for you Mia, it's something alive. It's from you Father" she pulled a large brown package out from under her desk and placed it infront of Mia, her eyes filled with childish curiosity. Mia slowly advanced and undid the package with care.

Everyone fell silent when they saw the large purple egg, wobbling around as if something was trying to break out. "An egg?" Lara said, tilting her head to get a better look.

"A dragon egg" they all looked up to their leader, with surprised eyes, Mia grinned and poked the egg. "I read once, that the dragon's rider must give the unborn dragon a name, to summon it to the world of the living" Mia fell silent, staring at the egg, trying to come up with a suitable name.

"If it helps, it's a girl, you can tell by the spots of colour on the bottom of the egg, if there is one it is female, if there is two, it is male" Mia nodded, still dumbstruck as what to call the baby.

"Cynder" Mia grinned at Santana who shrugged as if it was nothing. Mia nodded, and repeated the name, she jumped when the egg cracked, and a squeal erupted from within the shell. Soon a scaly claw popped through the hole, making it bigger.

Soon a head popped through and a chorus of 'aws' sounded throughout the room as it mewled again, falling clumsily from the shell. "A white Dragon, rare indeed"

Mia went to pick it up, it jumped around and playfully nipped at her hand, before letting her pick it up. Reina walked over to her cabinet, pulling three thick books out of it. She handed them to Santana who happily took them, skimming over the titles. "Dragon guides and books?"

Reina laughed and looked caringly down at the new addition to their team. "I used to love the myths and legends of dragons, I always wanted one, but they are so precious and rare. You must take immense care of her, Mia" Mia nodded, entranced by the creature trying to clamber onto her head.

"You are dismissed" the trio nodded and walked from the room, quickly making it back to their house, being stopped by everyone that saw the baby dragon, who was soaking up the attention.

The three of them sat reading a book each, writing down any important notes for later reference.

Mia had some left over mince that they had in their fridge, she pushed it into a metal bowl and placed it on the floor, along with a bowl of water, which Cynder managed to knock over before trying to drink off of the floor. Mia shook her head and refilled the bowl, bending the water into the sink.

The food was soon gone and Cynder was trying to fly, but kept crashing into things and losing control and smacking into the floor. The girls sighed and rubbed their eyes, they had spent hours making notes, and finally they were finished, this dragon was going to take a lot of looking after.

"Who would have thought a dragon would have so much energy, it's even worse than my mother's raccoon" Santana muttered, watching as Cynder leapt around, her tail flailing around behind her as she darted under the furniture and reappeared shortly after.

Lara just shook her head and got a drink, wondering to herself just what they had gotten themselves into. "It says it takes two years for them to be fully grown, so I don't think she'll be this small for much longer" Mia shook her head.

"Where is she going to stay?" they all fell silent, they hadn't thought of that, she was going to get huge. And Mia was not about to let her stay out in the cold, rain over night.

"Bed time Cynder" Mia had folded a thick woolly blanket and placed it on a chair next to her bed, with a pillow on it for Cynder's bed. Cynder cocked her head and wagged her tail, watching as Mia lay down in bed, pulling the blankets over her.

Mia patted the pillow, and Cynder jumped up and turned a few times before curling up, closing her eyes. Mia was drifting into sleep when she felt a weight on the end of her bed, and a head resting on her foot. She smiled, knowing that Cynder had joined her on the bed.

Soon the peaceful sound of forest nightlife lulled her into a deep sleep, a small smile upon her face.

Mia felt something small and wet run over her left eye, and a draft of wind over her face. She opened one eye to see Cynder a few centimetres away from her face, tail wagging at an insane pace. "Good morning Cynder" the dragon jumped in joy and fell off the bed in the process.

Mia shook her head and bent down, picking up the little bundle of energy, scratching her behind the ears. "Breakfast time!" Mia stood, in her pyjamas and slouched into the kitchen, stretching as she went, she could hear the click of nails against the tile, signalling that Cynder was indeed following her.

She opened the fridge and frowned, there was nothing suitable for the young dragon to eat, only dairy products and fruits and veg. Being in Konoha, meant that they had no need to buy meat, and they wouldn't of been fine with just that for a day, if it wasn't for the carnivore at her feet, currently trying to climb onto the counter.

The next thing she looked in was the cupboard, the only thing close to meat was the tinned tuna they had. Frowning, she pulled it out and spooned it into the bowl, before placing it on the floor. Cynder bounced over and sniffed it, before wolfing it down, not really caring what it was.

"This is going to be an eventful two years" She sighed and looked at the clock, groaning, it was only 5 am, silly dragon.


	14. The Future

**Chapter 14 – The Future**

**From now on, the plot will have practically no resemblance to the Manga, except for some minor details…**

Mia sat, her back against the side of Cynder's head. Santana and Lara were due back from their mission that day, and Mia was incredibly bored without them, Cynder sighed, and nudged Mia, silently asking her if she was ok. Mia smiled and stroked the head of her beloved dragon.

Cynder was fully grown now, and she was huge, and white with emerald eyes. It had been 4 years since she had gotten Cynder, and now she was 17 and one of the best ninja in her city.

She looked up when a large eagle flew up, a note in it's beak, it headed towards the tower, before having the note removed. Mia lost sight of it then, she was sitting in the clearing that had been created for her and Cynder to take off and land within the city. In the clearing was a huge shed, where Cynder slept.

Mia looked into the nearby stream, her reflection rippling in the water. She had grown no taller, but her features had matured, and her body had become more toned and muscular as she trained. She turned her head, when another ninja jumped into the clearing, nodding her greeting at Mia.

"Lady Reina wishes to speak to you, she says that it is urgent" Mia nodded and the ninja disappeared, leaving her alone with Cynder once again. Mia stood, winked at Cynder who let out a puff of air, and leapt towards the tower, soon landing on Reina's window. Reina smiled, a solemn look in her eyes and she opened the window, allowing Mia access.

"Mia have a seat" the girl nodded, fiddling with her jounin vest. "I have some bad news, you're friend, Rock Lee, has been murdered" Mia felt the breath being ripped from her chest, it was as if her lungs were caving in. "I am sorry Mia"

Mia nodded, feeling tears form in her eyes. "I've got to do something" Reina sighed, and asked what she could possibly do. "I have been working on something with my father, it can bring back the dead, I have to try, I promised to protect him with my life!"

"Ok, but you must let me know what is happening every few days or so" Mia nodded and briskly walked out of the tower, bumping into Lara and Santana. They looked concerned when they saw her expression.

"Lee has been killed, I'm going to go and try and bring him back, you are welcome to join me, if you are coming I will see you there" Her teammates looked shocked and sad, as Mia walked away to gather her things. She packed an over-the-shoulder bag, with essentials, and heading into the clearing.

'_Is everything ok?'_ Cynder could communicate with Mia through telepathy, who just shook her head.

"Lee's dead, we need to go to Konoha" Cynder nodded, and let Mia onto her back, before standing, and propelling them into the air. Cynder had a purple collar around her neck, with ropes for Mia to hold onto so she did not fall.

They soared through the air, at breakneck speeds, the clouds whizzing by, and the land moving at a blur. Within about 15 minutes, Konoha was looming in the near distance, she could see a group of teenagers crowding a body, a woman was there to.

Cynder dived, nearing the teens, who drew their weapons and were ready to attack, before she landed and Mia jumped off. They stilled, silence filling the air, as Mia stared down at Lee, motionless and pale on the floor. A woman with long blonde hair and a large chest, walked forward with an air of authority about her.

"State your name and business" her eyes darted to the dragon, with uncertain eyes, most people had never seen a dragon before, and it was seen as lucky to have in your lifetime.

"Mia Thermador, this is my dragon, Cynder" Cynder puffed, lying down, eyeing the woman up. "I'm here to help" All of a sudden another blonde blur was in her face, and she was pulled into an embrace. Naruto grinned, but tears were in his eyes, he had grown a few inches taller than her, and he had lost all of his baby fat, he had become very handsome.

"Mia-chan, I'm so glad you're here, this is Tsunade baa-san, she is the Hokage now" Mia smiled and held her hand out for the woman, who shook it.

"So you're the prophet child then" Mia raised an eyebrow, that was a new one.

"That is not what I am here about" her gaze returned to Lee, she slowly walked over, and kneeled down beside the body, letting out a solemn sigh. "I can't guarantee that this will work, but it's better than nothing" She lay down next to the body, and took the cold hand in hers.

"What are you doing?" This time it came from Kiba, who had Akamaru by his side, he had grown huge too, now being about half the size of Kiba, easily big enough to ride around.

Mia said nothing, and concentrated on the body, she could feel her right hand going dead, and Lee's right hand (the one in her's) becoming warm. She could feel her father watching over her, but she felt no concern, so she was not worried about the consequences.

After most of her life had been transferred into the older boy, she let out a shaky breath. "Don't panic, I'll be back soon enough" and with that, the last drop of her life slipped into Lee's body.

Lee took in a panicked breath, and shot up, coughing, all of his wounds were gone, and his previous injuries had been healed, he could fight and walk alone again. There was shocked voices all around him, he opened his eyes, to see his friends crowding around him. "What happened?"

"I don't believe it" they all looked to Tsunade who was checking for a pulse in Mia, but finding none. "She transferred her life into you, so you could live" Lee's eyes widened and he scampered over to the body, that mimicked how his looked, minutes before.

Lara and Santana ran into the field, seeing everyone crowded around Mia. They panted and walked over, startling everyone. "Hi guys!" they looked at Santana like she had grown another head. "What? Oh, Lee nice to see you alive and kicking again"

"But, my life was not worth was her's is, she has wasted her time upon me" Lara scoffed, and walked over to Mia, nudging the body.

"She'll be up soon enough, her father'll bring her back" they all looked confused, and glanced between eachother, silently wondering who was going to ask the question.

"Father?" It was Neji, who stared at Santana, demanding an answer.

"Calm down, don't get your panties in a twist" She yawned and stretched, groaning when her back cracked. "That isn't our thing to tell" she glared at Lara who rubbed her neck sheepishly. "Ask Mia if you want to know, but don't get hopeful, it's a touchy subject"

Mia groaned and reached up to rub her eyes, she opened one to see Lara and Santana grinning, leaning over her. "Personal bubble guys" they laughed but backed off, reaching out to help Mia stand. Mia twisted and stretched. "Afternoon"

She nodded at the bewildered bunch, and walked over to Tsunade bowing. "I'm finished, do you mind if we stay here for a few night, I need to keep an eye on Lee, but everything should be fine" she smiled at the boy, who had tears streaming down his face as he embraced her, thanking her numerous time.

"It's ok, I promised to protect you, and I failed, so it was the least I could do" she sauntered over to the edge of the town, looking back at her friends. "C'mon I'm hungry, let's go get food" Lee bounced over, everyone else following, insisting that he pay for the girls, who told him to stop being ridiculous.

The food soon came, and conversation built up. Chouji was at the end, Shikamaru around to his left, then Ino, then Sakura, then a boy they found out to be Sai, then Naruto, then Neji, then Lee, then Tenten, then opposite was Kiba, Lara, Santana, Mia, Hinata and Shino.

"Where's Uchiha?" everyone fell silent, and most gazes avoided Naruto, who looked angry and sad at the same time. "Nevermind, it doesn't matter"

"He left, gone to join Orochimaru" Mia choked on her drink at the name, drawing a few curious stares. "He wanted to become stronger to kill his brother Itachi" Again Mia choked, she looked shocked, and excused herself, Lara quickly following.

"What was that about?" Lara asked as Mia splashed her face.

"Orochimaru is Kabuto's leader, Kabuto was talking with Baki to kill Hayate Gekko" Lara's eyes widened, making the connections. "And I met Itachi when I was very young, he was lovely to me, like the brother I never had, but I know what he's done, but I also know why he did it. Stupid Uchihas"

Lara sighed and shook her head, patting Mia on the back, before going to leave. "What about you and Sasuke?" she froze, feeling a pang in her chest.

"If there was anything, it was in the past, don't worry, I'm over him, I don't dig traitors" she winked at Mia, who apologised and walked out with her friend, back to the table, where friendly conversation had returned.

"Sorry about that, swallowed the wrong way" everyone bought it, and soon returned to the meal, with laughter and jokes made to eachother.

"Gaara became Kazekage" Mia glanced up to see Naruto staring at her, a calculating look in his eyes, as if testing her reaction. She didn't even flinch, instead she raised an eyebrow, and nodded briefly.

"Good for him" Naruto frowned, obviously not liking her reaction to the news. "What?"

"You were supposed to be his friend" everyone else had kept talking but quietened down, not wanting to intrude over the heated conversation.

"I don't know if you could call it that. I tried to be his friend, years ago, but then things happened, people change, no biggy" Naruto slammed his fork down, obvious anger in his eyes.

"How can you sit there and say that? He was in a bad place, he was exiled. How can you say no biggy? He's changed, a lot, and you've walked out-" Mia stood, pushing her chair backwards, everyone had silenced, looking at the table.

"Do not take your anger on Sasuke out on me! He did things that I'm not sure I can forget, he has not tried to contact me for anything, I have not walked out on him. So don't you sit there, and act all high and mighty Uzamaki, you don't know anything about me or my life, so stay out of it" she threw money on the table and walked towards the door, but darkness swirled around her before she got there, and soon she had disappeared into thin air.

Santana stood, glaring at Naruto, Lara slowly rising too, her eyes on the table. Naruto's eyes became sad, and his mouth opened and closed again. "I'm sorry"

"You really don't know what she's had to go through, what she's going through now. So don't act like you do" The other two left to try and find their teammate.

Mia sat, on the Hokage Mountain, tears spilling down her cheeks. She thought back to the betrayal she felt, how alone she felt when she came back into the world. The child of Death.

Someone sat down next to her, but didn't touch her. She glanced up, to see an older man with long white hair, with a strange headband and long red streaks coming from his eyes. He smiled at her, before looking back up to the setting sun.

"You probably don't want to talk about it. But if you do, I'm Jiraiya, nice to meet you…" Mia smiled and shook his hand, recognising the name, he was one of the legendary Sannin.

"Mia Thermador, thanks" He shook her hand and stood, bidding his farewell. She waved, but soon the feeling of loneliness washed over her again. She had nowhere to sleep, and she wasn't prepared to go looking for some. Tsunade was not an option either.

Tired, she lay down, darkness cushioning her head, and covering her with a blanket. She soon dried her eyes, and fell asleep, no dream plaguing her mind.


	15. Flying High

**Chapter 15 – Flying High**

Mia groaned, and sat up, she had fallen asleep on the Hokage Mountain, and her back was killing her, from the awkward position she slept in. She raised an eyebrow when she saw a tray next to her; she leaned over and lifted the towel, to see a boxed sandwich and a bottle of water, with a note.

_Dear Mia,_

_I'm so sorry about what I said yesterday, I didn't mean it._

_You're right, I shouldn't take my anger out on someone that doesn't deserve it._

_I brought you some food,_

_Hope you can forgive me,_

_Naruto _

She smiled, she had forgiven Naruto already, but it was nice of him to think of her and come looking for her. Reaching over, she opening the sandwich and the water, eating it quickly, before standing, ignoring the nagging ache in her lower back.

Looking down she saw a blonde boy, sitting nervously at the bottom of the mountain. She chuckled and jumped down, before casually walking over and sitting next to the boy, who jumped. Naruto scratched the back of his neck in nervousness, he was avoiding her gaze.

"Don't worry Naruto, I forgave you last night" She heard a sigh from the boy, before he looked up to her. "You miss him don't you?"

"I do, and I promised Sakura, that I would bring him back, and I will do everything I can to do just that" Mia took Naruto's hand and squeezed it, she knew that he had become stronger and she had every belief in him that he would succeed. "I even went away for two years, with Jiraiya-san, to improve my skills, and still I can hear him mocking me"

"Did you say Jiraiya?" Naruto nodded, a confused look on his face. "Oh, he came to talk to me last night" Naruto's eyes fell at the mention of the previous day. Mia stood, smiling down at the boy, who grinned back up at her.

"How about I take you for a fly?" Naruto's eyes shone with excitement, and in a flash, he was on his feet dragging Mia towards the gate.

"Hell yeah!" Mia laughed and waved at the guards when they gave them a curious glance. She called like an eagle into the sky, and watched as Cynder swooped into the field, landing gracefully.

"Cynder, this is Naruto, Naruto, Cynder. I said he could fly with us for a bit" Mia tilted her head, and winked at Naruto when Cynder nodded, bending down for them to mount her. Mia led Naruto over and helped him climb up onto the animal, who looked back over her shoulder at them.

"Right I'm going to hold on to the rails, can you hold onto them or me?" Naruto nodded, feeling adrenaline pulse through his veins. "Ok, oh and one last thing, don't let go" With that Cynder flew them up into the air, miles above the Village. It looked quite nice from up there, people the size of tiny ants.

Naruto was silent as they flew around, diving in and out of clouds, it was like a wild rollercoaster and he loved it. When Cynder calmed to gliding, Naruto spoke up. "When did you get her then?"

"The day we got back after the Chunin exams" Naruto nodded, entranced by the control Cynder had over where she went. Mia hesitated. "My Father got it for me"

Naruto raised an eyebrow, he remembered Santana and Lara talking about him, but they quickly silenced themselves. "Are you two close?" Mia laughed, she knew that something had come out from Santana and Lara when she was dead, her father had told her.

"Very, he raised me for the first few years of my life, before I joined The Land of the Amazons" Naruto nodded, trying to think og things to ask about him, without sounding rude or intruding.

"Do you see him often, with living in an all women city and all?" Mia smiled, it was obvious that he was dying to know about her father, after the nervousness of her friends when it came up.

"I speak to him all of the time, the third met him too" Naruto looked sadly at Konoha when the third was mentioned. "I'll let you meet him someday, but not for a while yet" Naruto grinned and nodded enthusiastically, admiring the view.

"We better head back, I need to contact Lady Reina, she will be worried" Naruto nodded, and held on as they descended landing back in the field that they took off in. "Later Cynder" The dragon nodded and flew into the air, leaving Naruto and Mia to their own devises.

They headed back to Naruto's flat, heading inside. "Sorry about the mess, I wasn't expecting visitors" Mia just laughed and started picking up empty ramen cups, sending Naruto a mocking look, before binning them. Naruto went into the kitchen to make some tea, while Mia busied herself cleaning up, picking up dirty clothes and setting a wash off, and washing some dishes while the water boiled.

"Much better" Naruto scratched the back of his head, and poured the tea, handing a cup to Mia. "Do you have any paper and a pen I could use?"

Naruto nodded and scurried off, coming back with a few sheets of paper and a black pen. Mia smiled, and began to write her letter.

_To Lady Reina,_

_Everything is going fine, Lee has been saved and I'm still alive and kicking._

_It's good to see my old friend's again, and I'm not sure how long I'll be staying here, I'll let you know later on when it is decided._

_Sasuke Uchiha, if you did not already know, has abandoned Konoha, and is now classed as an enemy._

_I will report if anything else happens,_

_Mia Thermador_

Mia nodded and handed the pen and spare paper back to Naruto, finishing off her tea. "I better go find my teammates, they'll be worried. If you need anyone to talk to, come find me" Naruto grinned, and watched as Mia put her cup in the sink , before heading out of the door.

Mia walked into the Hokage tower, greeting the receptionist, before knocking on Tsunade's door. "Enter" Mia pushed the door open and slid in, nodding her greeting at Tsunade, who nodded back.

"I was just wondering if you could inform me on the whereabouts of my teammates" Tsunade nodded and pulled out a diary, she opened it into the blue section and took a swig from her glass.

"They are staying at the Hyuuga Mansion, I will call Hiashi and let him know you are coming" Mia nodded her thanks, bowed and left, heading outside. She blessed her luck, when Hinata walked outside, just infront of her. Mia jogged over next to the girl, smiling at her.

"Hey Hinata, I was wondering" Hinata looked at her, fiddling with her hair, it had grown much longer since the Chunin exams. "Could you take me to your place, I need to find Lara and Santana" Hinata blushed and nodded, leading Mia down some roads, before a huge Mansion loomed in the distance.

"W-Welcome, to my h-home" Mia grinned, and followed Hinata inside, a man walked out of the Kitchen, his hair Neji's length, but he was much older. "F-Father, this is M-Mia Thermador, she i-is Lara and Santana's t-teammate, Mia this is m-my Father, H-Hiashi Hyuuga" Mia nodded her greeting shaking the man's hand.

"thank you for welcoming my team into your home, speaking of which, do you have any idea where they are?" Hiashi nodded beckoning her to follow him, Hinata bid her goodbyes and headed off down a corridor. They soon came across the courtyard, where Neji, Tenten and Lee, were training, alongside Lara and Santana. "Thank you sir"

"Please, call me Hiashi" Mia nodded and walked outside, grinning at her teammates who shook their heads, and walked over hugging their teammate.

"Bitch, you worried me!" Santana winked and punched Mia in the arm gently.

"Where were you?" Lara frowned, obviously not happy with her temporary disappearance.

"Last night, I was on the Hokage Mountain. Today, I was flying with Naruto" Mia shrugged before waltzing over to Lee, letting him pull her into a hug. Neji stood with Tenten, a blank expression on his face, 'not much change there, then'. Tenten smiled and waved at her, which she returned and prised herself away from the taller boy.

"I was about to come find you myself" Mia grinned and shook her head, resting her arm on Lee's shoulder.

"Why are we standing around, let's spar!" They all jumped into battle positions, Lee against Mia, Neji against Santana and Tenten against Lara.

"Begin!" Lee lunged at Mia, who laughed light-heartedly and danced out of the way. This was going to be a fun trip.


	16. A Message to the Sand

**Chapter 16 – A Message to the Sand**

Mia yawned, feeling well rested, she had slept in one of the guest rooms, Santana and Lara in the rooms either side of her. The room was very well kept, and made her feel calm, she groaned and rolled over, glancing at the clock, it was only 7am, she did not want to get up, smiling she snuggled back in, soon falling into a light slumber.

Santana was already up, having just finished her shower, she felt refreshed and was loving the smell of the towels the mansion had.

She grabbed her clothes, slipping into them, before leaving her room, she looked around, seeing that Lara and Mia had not yet surfaced. She turned and bumped straight into someone's chest, she was about to apologise when she saw Neji, staring down at her, a slightly amused look in her eyes.

"Good morning, Mr. Sparkles" Neji's eye twitched, at the nickname, but Santana ignored It and grinned at Neji, poking him on the nose, and moving around him.

Soon she found herself stuck inbetween Neji and the wall, his hands either side of her head. She raised an eyebrow, and leaned back against the wall, keeping calm as the Hyuuga stared down at her, something strange in his eyes. "Is there a reason why I'm stuck against the wall?"

Neji said nothing, looking from one eye to the other, as if looking for something, he frowned, and leaned further in. "Nobody speaks to me like that here…" Santana rolled her eyes, this was all a pride thing. "You puzzle me" This held Santana's curiosity, she tilted her head in confusion.

Her eyes widened in shock as Neji pressed his lips against hers, not moving, testing the waters. She did the same, didn't push him away, but didn't give in. Neji pulled away, an sense of innocent worry in his eyes, Santana didn't move, finding his expression cute. "You call that a kiss? I was expecting more from an awesome Hyuuga like yourself"

Neji growled and pushed his lips back against hers, slightly rougher and surer this time. They didn't stay still for long, but began massaging the other's, coaxing Santana into moving back against him.

Santana smirked, but nonetheless moved against his, feeling him leaning more into her, one of his hands moving down to her hip.

Just as Neji's tongue darted out to lick Santana's lip, an awkward cough sounded from her left. Neji quickly pulled away, turning to glare at the intruder. Lara stood, a clean smirk on her face, trying not to laugh, she waved and chuckled, walking past the two. "Get a room guys"

Santana ran a hand through her hair, looking at the floor, an awkward smile on her face. Neji's hand removed itself from the wall, as he pushed himself away slightly. He gazed intently at her, before turning and walking towards the kitchen, looking to see if she had followed.

Santana grinned and followed him, walking alongside him. Soon they were in the Kitchen, sitting opposite Lara, Hinata and Hanabi. "What does everyone want for breakfast then?" Lara stood, heading over to the fridge.

Mia groaned, looking at the clock for the second time, deciding it was time to get up, she slumped into the shower, not staying in for long.

Soon she was at the bottom of the stairs, heading towards the kitchen. Neji walked out of the kitchen, nodding briefly at Mia, who returned the gesture with ease. Santana was chatting away happily with Hanabi, whilst Lara poured some tea, smiling at Mia when she entered.

Hiashi walked in shortly after, his head held high. "Tsunade-sama wishes to see you three in her office ASAP" Mia nodded and stood, Lara and Santana followed her out of the door.

"I wonder what's up?" Mia shrugged, leaping towards the tower, Lara and Santana hot on her heals. They knocked on the door, and stepped inside, to see Neji and hit team inside along with Shikamaru's team, Kiba's team and Naruto, Sakura and Sai. Mia assumed that Sai was Sasuke's replacement.

"We got you message Tsunade-sama, is everything alright?" Tsunade sighed, and glanced out of the window, before turning to face the Ninja.

"We have some missions for you all to complete, I have spoken with Lady Reina, and she had agreed to loan you three to us for the time being" Everyone nodded, listening carefully. "Reports of Sasuke have been sent in, he was last seen in the forests outside of the Land of the Amazons. Everyone but Lee and Mia will be going after him, you two are to report this news to Gaara-san as soon as possible, and make sure, that if Sasuke comes anywhere near you people are protected"

Naruto looked to Mia slyly, when Gaara was mentioned, he knew that she hadn't forgiven hi or his siblings for turning against Konoha and attacking, and that the visit may be more awkward than it would have been if Tsunade had sent someone else. It also made him wonder, why she had sent Mia, of all people, Mia would have been the best to have when tracking the Uchiha. "Do I make myself clear?"

Everyone nodded, and were told to pack their things and make their way as soon as possible, Tsunade threw a scroll at Mia, who caught it easily, an obvious look of discontent on her face. Tsunade just stared at, daring her to question her judgements, but Mia said nothing, and returned the stare with ease, making everyone feel a bit uncomfortable in the thick tension that had been created.

They filed out into the courtyard infront of the tower. "If you need me, call, I'll be there in an instant. C'mon Lee, let's fly" Mia nodded at her teammates, sending a warning glance in Naruto's direction, he winked and zipped his mouth, indicating he wouldn't say anything.

Mia threw things messily into her rucksack, packing all she had brought with anger, she knew that Tsunade had obviously sent her for a reason, and she had a suspicious feeling that Tsunade and Lady Reina wanted the tension the two had to be gone, to make communications easier. After all she was one of Lady Reina's best ninja, and Gaara was Kazekage, she was surprised she hadn't been sent earlier.

She walked out, towards the gates of Konoha, Lee was already standing there, bag on his back, grin on his face. He waved enthusiastically when she arrived, and walked out to the field with her. "Are we not going to run, if we don't start now, we'll get there even later" Mia smiled and bird called into the air.

"We're not going by foot" Cynder spun through a cloud, before landing gracefully infront of the pair. _'Another one?'_

"We need to fly to the sand, to deliver a message" Mia forced a smile for Lee's sake, who was oblivious to the lack of talking done between her and Gaara. Cynder stared down at her mistress, calculating her gaze.

'_To see Gaara? This should be interesting, no?'_ Mia huffed, before clambering on, Lee following. "Hold on tightly" Lee nodded, reaching around her to hold onto the reins. And soon they were in the air, soaring through the skies.

They flew over the Land of the Amazons, Mia pointed to it. "That's where I live" Lee leant over, grinning as he looked down at it.

"it looks very nice" Mia nodded her approval, and as quickly as it came, it had gone again. Soon they were flying above nothing but desert, a few ninjas were out. "Crikey, it's only been half an hour and we're practically there" He was right, the Sand was coming up in the distance, the threatening wall dominating all around it.

"We'll have to go by foot from here, I don't want them shooting at Cynder" Lee nodded, and Cynder swooped down, sending sand flying into the air. Mia patted her head, before Cynder flew away, it was just down to her and Lee now.

They walked slowly, not wanting to look too eager, until they came upon the structure of the wall, a small entrance at the front, two guards standing out, menacing looks on their faces. "State your name and business" Mia rolled her eyes.

"Mia Thermador and Rock Lee, we are here on Tsunade-sama's orders to deliver some news to the Kazekage" They shared a glance, before stepping aside and letting them pass into the city of sand. People bustled around, chatting and playing.

"it's so busy here" Lee stated, smiling at little kids who ran around them, towards the local park. Mia nodded, a blank expression on her face, she was getting more fidgety by the minute, she was not looking forward to the meeting.

"Can you give the scroll in, me and Gaara aren't really on speaking terms, feel free to mention that I'm here, I'm going to look around and find a hotel, I'll meet you back here in 2 hours" Lee looked sad that she was not coming with him, but nodded, understanding her motives.

"May I ask why you are not speaking?" Mia laughed coldly, images of the past flashing in her brain, memories.

"When we were younger, the Chunin exams, I knew and saw things I shouldn't of, then the attack just topped it off. We haven't spoken since" Lee nodded, not pressing the matter anymore, he saluted her, taking the scroll, before bouncing off towards the tower.

For a few minutes Mia just stood, staring at the space her friend had once stood on. She sighed and set off, the heat of the sun blaring down at her.

She sauntered around, coming across a small store, with antiques in the window. It peeked her interest, and she walked over, pushing the old door open, an old woman sat at the till, her red hair in tight curls, matching the redness of her lips.

She had on a long black velvet dress, with a green waistcoat on over the top of it, Mia wondered how she was not boiling. Mia smiled quickly and turned her gaze to the jewellery section, her eyes instantly finding a matching necklace and bracelet set. The necklace was a silver chain, a small purple dragon hanging off it, the bracelet was the same chain, with purple jewels on parts of the chain.

She picked them up, having a closer look, she jumped slightly when a voice sounded over her shoulder, she hadn't even heard the woman move. "Would you like to try them on?" Mia nodded and let the woman help her put them on, before having a look in the mirror that hung on the wall.

They looked great, she smiled fingering the dragon, before turning to the woman, whose eyes glowed a vibrant green, reminding her of a certain red head she should be seeing. She shook the thought out of the head, and smiled at the woman. "How much?"

"For you dear, 12 for the lot" Mia smiled more genuinely now, pulling out some coins handing them over. "Thank you, have a lovely day dear, and I you don't mind me saying, you have stunning features" Mia blushed and smiled at the floor, nodding at the woman as she left the shop.

She still had a ton of time to kill, so deciding it was time to find herself a hotel, she knew in the back of her head that Gaara would offer for them to stay in his house, and no doubt Lee would accept with glee. But the last thing Mia wanted to do was stay in their house.

So she set off, finding a decent looking hotel, she stored it in her mind for later, depending on where they actually ended up staying.


	17. A Forced Greeting

**Chapter 17 – A Forced Greeting**

**A little bit of swearing in this one… Oh! And thanks for all of the comments, I really appreciate it, it's nice to have a reason to write. Believe me, without the comments there wouldn't be a chapter 17… :)**

Mia stood, waiting for Lee to turn up, she didn't have to wait long, and soon the green bundle of energy was infront of her, his signature grin on his face. "Ah Mia, on time as always. I delivered the scroll and informed Gaara-sama of your assistance, but he wishes to see you in person"

Mia closed her eyes, and mentally groaned, this was exactly what she hadn't wanted. "When?"

"As soon as you are available" Mia sighed, she didn't know whether to just get it over with, or whether to push her luck, and wait, and see if he came to her. She nodded, thanking Lee, before saying that she would just go now. "Oh by the way, Gaara-sama offered us accommodation, I said it was up to you, I would not want you to be alone"

Mia smiled at Lee, he was too kind for his own good. She set off slowly, towards the tall tower, she felt eyes on her but she shook the feeling off, putting it down to her unusual looks. Sauntering into the tower, she stood in the queue to the reception desk, noticing the huge pile of love letters addressed to the Kazekage.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, turning to glare at the person, she was surprised to see Kankuro standing there. He had grown to be quite a bit taller than her, and he still wore the paint on his face, his puppet securely strapped to his back.

Her face returned to an unbothered expression, while she waited for him to say something. "Mia, you're here to see Gaara-san, no?" Mia nodded, looking back at the flustered receptionist, obviously they were not used to a line of the size. "Follow me"

Kankuro led her out of the line, and through the doors, before stopping. "He's through the big doors at the end" Mia nodded and walked away from the puppeteer, who stood watching her, before heading back into the reception, no doubt to try and help clear off the crowd.

Mia paused halfway down the corridor, taking deep breaths, she was not ready for this meeting, never mind the fact that she was alone with him, she was more worried for him than she was for her.

She took the last few steps, before briskly knocking on the door, butterflies going crazy in her stomach. "Enter" the voice was deeper and smoother than she remembered it being, but Naruto had said that the Kazekage had changed a lot.

She pushed the door open, and stepped in, letting in thud shut after her, there was a silence when Gaara lifted his eyes to meet his guest, they widened slightly when they saw just who it was, before going back to their normal stare. He had obviously either expected her not to come, or come much later.

"Mia-san, have a seat" Mia growled under her breath, she wanted to be out of here as soon as possible, not sit and have a chat like nothing was wrong. But she sat, perched on the edge, ready to make a break at any chance she had. "Lee told me of Sasuke's whereabouts, your village. We don't know much about your village, and some information would help us greatly"

"Why me? Ask Lady Reina, she'd be delighted to help you with whatever you need" Gaara sighed, leaning forward onto his desk.

"Why would we waste time when we have you here?" Mia glowered at the man, staring at the bridge of his nose, so she wouldn't risk getting lost in the glowing green eyes.

"What makes you think I'm going to talk?" the Kazekage rubbed his temples in frustration, and Mia felt a slight sense of pride that she could hold her own against him.

"You act as if you are a prisoner here" Mia raised an eyebrow at this, when she thought about it, she really didn't want to be here, but she had no choice, so in some ways, she was a prisoner of the Sand.

"Well, maybe I feel like one" Gaara's eyes widened again, a slight look of shock and a hint of something resembling hurt. The last thing any leader wants to here, is that one of their allies feels like a prisoner when in their city, and Mia knew it.

There was another moment or two of silence, as Gaara decided what to say, Mia knew she had struck a nerve. "I apologise, for those years ago if that's what you're upset about. I am not proud of my childhood ways, but I have, all I care about is the safety of my people. If you are really that bothered by my presence, than feel free to leave"

Mia thought about it, but she knew that she couldn't leave Lee, or betray Tsunade's orders. "I can't leave Lee here, plus my duty to Tsunade and Lady Reina, should come before my want to leave"

Gaara sat for a moment, before nodding. "I would offer you a place to stay, if I thought you would accept it" Mia slowly felt guilt trickle into her system and she cursed herself, all he did was say sorry and now she's the one feeling bad, plus she felt bad for taking Lee away from him.

To the surprise of both of them, Mia relaxed slightly. "I'll stay in your house, Lee really wants to spend some time with you" Gaara slowly nodded, before standing.

"I will take you to Temari, she'll show you the way to our house" Mia groaned softly, her head was killing her, she rubbed the bridge of her nose, willing the pain to go away. She didn't even notice, when Gaara saw her discomfort, and made his way to her side. "Is everything alright?"

Mia flinched slightly, but nodded, trying to get his attention off of her. She stood, feeling the room spin, soon she was falling, but arms wrapped around her, halting her fall. The next thing she knew, she had blacked out.

Lara and Santana led the other's towards their village, the trees looming over everything else. But as they came into the long clearing leading up to the gates they stopped.

"Men aren't allowed anywhere near our village, and Sasuke knows that, so he wouldn't of gone in, and if he had, then he's already dead" Everyone looked around, searching for something out of the ordinary. "Santana, you go in, inform Lady Reina of our mission and exactly who is doing it, we don't want one of these getting killed"

Santana nodded and ran off towards the gates, quickly saying something to the guards, who frowned but nodded.

"Split up, start in the forest surrounding the village, don't get to far away from anyone else, and if you see him you know what to do" Everyone nodded, and soon Lara was left on her own, she pushed through the thickest overgrowth, heading straight towards a spring, that she knew of, it was a water supply, so they should of stopped here at some point.

She wasn't sure if Sasuke was alone, or if he had his team with him, but what she did know, was that if she saw him, he was going to have a very sore nose.

She paused just before the spring, sending in a small camera, disguised as a bug, to have a look around before she just waltzed in. The bug saw nothing, but Lara held her breath, she could smell him nearing her location. She just watched as he slouched into the clearing, clearly tired and frustrated, it made her wonder, just what was he doing in a place like this?

He had grown even more handsome than before, his bang growing a bit longer, she nearly laughed at his shirt, an open top, showing his chest. "I know you're there Lara, you might as well come out" she chuckled, before pushing herself into the clearing, she knew what she was doing was dangerous, but that was part of the thrill.

Sasuke turned to look at her, letting his eyes do a once-over. A smirk found it's way onto his face, covering up the tiredness. "You're shattered, what are you doing here?"

He sat, seeing no obvious threat against him, his eyes never leaving hers. "Would you believe me if I said I was coming to find you?" Lara scoffed, and rolled her eyes. "Thought not, well it's true I need someone to – "

"Revive your clan? Well I'm not some whore, who sleeps around with anyone, I'm over you Sasuke, and to be honest, I'm not to sure if there was anything there to begin with" Sasuke growled and soon was standing a few inches away from Lara, slowly backing her into a tree. His eyes held a look that obviously said 'there was something and you know it'.

"Anyway, it's not like I would abandon everyone I know, to run away with you and make babies" Sasuke raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Instead, he leaned in, going for a kiss, Lara turned her head quicker, and he ended up kissing her cheek. His lips tightened, and she could tell he was annoyed, after years of being fawned over, he was not about to take no for an answer.

"Aren't you going to call whoever's with you, to come get me?" Lara snorted softly, but shook her head.

"I see no threat here, just a tired boy, not knowing what to do next" Sasuke glowered at her, punching the bark above her head, feeling it crumble under his fist. "And before you give me the, 'Orochimaru can make me stronger' bullshit, I don't want to hear it" The Uchiha nuzzled the top of her head, very out of character for him.

"The Snake is dead, and before you ask, I dispersed my team a while ago, I'll go after Itachi when the time is right" Lara's eye widened, Mia would be happy to know that Orochimaru had been done in. "Though I could not get to Kabuto before everyone else would come after me"

"So what's your plan of action then?" Sasuke's trademark smirk was back, and before she could question it, his lips were firmly planted against hers, tongue shortly following. Lara huffed, but squeaked when she felt his hand creep under the bottom of her shirt, she smacked it away, but in doing so gave Sasuke the opportunity he wanted.

His tongue glided into her mouth, coaxing her's to react. She did, biting not too hard on his tongue, until he removed his mouth from hers, glaring down at her, she just shrugged. "I'm still not coming with you" Sasuke shrugged and picked her up, successfully throwing her over his shoulder.

"SASUKE UCHIHA, PUT ME DOWN THIS INSTANT!" Lara knew she had alerted everyone else, but Sasuke could seem to care less, as he sauntered back towards the clearing, you think he was just taking a leisurely stroll, not making a break for it. "I WILL NOT BARE YOUR CHILDREN" Naruto was the first to burst into the clearing, Santana had come back out of the village shortly after, to investigate just what was going on.

"Sasuke-teme?" Sasuke said nothing, but tightened his hold on a struggling Lara. "Put Lara-chan down, and fight like a man"

"I'm not here to fight, dobe" Naruto growled and clenched his fists.

"After all of this time, after you abandon us all, you think you can waltz back in like you did nothing wrong?" Lara tried to knee him in the gut, but Sasuke caught her knee easily, whilst keeping his gaze on a fuming Naruto.

"I want to come back, I killed Orochimaru, and I'll go after Itachi when the time is right" Naruto calmed down, his big blues eyes seeing his best friend again, rather than his enemy. "Either take me back, or I'm taking Lara hostage, until you take me back. I don't mind either way"

"I do!" Sasuke smirked, when Lara huffed in frustration. Suddenly Sasuke went limp, and Lara toppled to the ground. "Leah-sensei!" the woman grinned and patted Lara on the head, before glaring down at Sasuke, who groaned and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Honestly, men are such perverts" Lara nodded, standing by her sensei. "Lara take care, I better be off, I've got a mission to complete" Leah saluted before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

"C'mon then guys, better get Sasuke back to Konoha ASAP, but I don't think Tsunade is going to let him walk back in easily" Shikamaru stated, a bored look on his face. Sasuke shrugged, and let Naruto pull him to his feet, slightly shocked when he was embraced by the other boy.

"Aw, I love a bit of bromance" Santana winked at the boys before heading off, in the direction of Konoha, Lara and everyone else hot on her heels.


	18. Sunny Day

**Chapter 18 – Sunny Day**

Mia could hear voices around her, but they were muffled, her head felt heavy and she couldn't open her eyes. She heard Lee's voice over the other's, asking if he should retrieve a doctor. A female voice told him not to, that she would be fine. Mia guessed that was Temari.

She could feel another person in the room, and she had a pretty good guess as to who they were. She sighed, bringing her hand up to rub her eyes, as if trying to get them to cooperate with her.

Lee was at her side in an instant, and when her eyes finally decided to open, she grinned at him, seeing the relief in his eyes. She sat up, yawning, she needed that sleep, her head was too clustered and it was giving her migraines. Her eyes drifted to the blonde woman standing at the end of the sofa, a small smile was on her face, it was definitely Temari.

"Are you ok, Mia-san? Gaara-sama said you passed out in his office" Mia groaned at the memory, the room had been so tense, she felt as if she was trapped. She just nodded, smiling at the older boy, who grinned back, and backed off when she stood, stretching.

Finally her eyes fell on the figure standing to the side of Temari, a few feet back. His eyes held nothing to tell Mia what he was thinking, but they were troubled.

Mia nodded at him, before heading towards the door. "Where do you think you're going, you need to rest" Temari said, a smirk on her face. Mia just chuckled and shook her head, the old Temari shining through. She had officially decided to put the past behind her, Gaara seemed nice enough now.

"I'm hungry" Temari nodded, but steered her towards their kitchen. Lee yelled something about going out, and soon the front door slammed. Gaara followed them into the kitchen, sitting on the stool next to Mia, while Temari bustled around the kitchen.

"What do you two want? I've got the ingredients for some dumpling soup" Mia nodded, leaning on the island infront of her. "So what have you been up to over the years then?"

"I got a dragon" Temari and Gaara both gave her funny looks, she just shrugged carrying on. "I brought Lee back from the dead not so long ago" Again their eyes widened and they openly stared at the kunoichi. "other than that, not too much"

Temari nodded, a look of shock still on her face, but it soon wore of and she went back to cooking. "What about you two?"

"Well, obviously Gaara became Kazekage" Temari sent Gaara a proud look, to which he nodded, still not the type to show much emotion. "Other than official stuff, nothing too exciting has happened"

Mia nodded, asking if Temari needed any help. "I'm fine thanks, why don't you two take a walk, you probably don't know your way around yet" Gaara stood, waiting for Mia to follow, she glanced at him before heading towards the door. They were still a bit awkward around eachother, Mia wasn't sure whether it was too early to be taking walks alone.

They walked slowly, neither breaking the silence, the streets were dusty and sandy, a cool breeze calmed down the heat of the sun. "I'm sorry for being awkward yesterday. I wasn't having a good day" Mia said, keeping her eyes on the path ahead.

"Because you were here" Mia sighed at Gaara's statement, she knew she had upset him, but he knew he had upset her those years ago. "I was wrong those years ago, I did want you as my friend, Shukaku would just talk me out of it" Mia then looked up to Gaara, seeing sadness in his eyes.

She took a breath and took his hand into hers, smiling at him. "Shukaku doesn't rule your life, the fact that you are Kazekage is enough proof. I will be your friend, if you start talking to me more. Your eyes tell stories, but your mouth says nothing" Gaara looked to her and nodded and small smile on his face, he enclosed his hand around hers, enjoying the warmth of a true friend.

"What's up with the huge pile of love letters in the reception?" Gaara blushed, his cheeks turning a paler shade of red to his head. "Somebody's got a lot of admirers, I wonder who that could be?" she winked at the blushing Kazekage, and looked around seeing many young women, glancing at the red head and giggling, before blushing.

"I'm surprised you haven't got a girlfriend with all of these pretty girls after you" Gaara shrugged, nodding at a few people as they walked hand in hand.

"None of them can hold a decent conversation, so I don't see why I should waste my time with them" Mia nodded approvingly, ignoring some of the glares sent at her for walking hand in hand, chatting freely with the ever desirably Kazekage. "What about you? I'm surprised you don't have a lot of admirers"

Mia raised an eyebrow, she hadn't really thought much about it. "Well… I live in an all-woman village, and I guess I've never really thought about it, Lara and Santana are more desirable than me anyway"

Gaara stared at Mia's face, as they sat down on a bench on the edge of the park, their hands now separated. "I don't think so" Mia looked at him, a tinge of pink on her cheeks, she just laughed and smiled contently. The wind blowing her hair into her face.

"Well, you one of the only ones, I'm sure" Without thinking, Gaara reached up and tucked a few strands of hair behind Mia's ear, his fingers tickling the sensitive skin of her ear. Mia giggled and bent her head towards her neck, trying to stop the tickling.

Gaara smiled, causing Mia to stop and stare, it was very rare for him to smile so genuinely, and it lit up his face. "You should smile more" Gaara sighed, and shook his head, slouching against the bench. "It's a beautiful, sunny day today. Great weather for going out" Gaara nodded watching as the children giggled and looked over to him.

"Temari should be nearly done, shall we head back?" Gaara nodded and stood, holding his hand out for Mia, who grinned and let him pull her to her feet, his hand lingering a bit longer than it should've.

The made their way back to the mansion, a comfortable silence amongst them, Just as they were about to head towards the mansion, a girl ran up to Gaara, hugged him before giggled nervously and shoving a pink envelope into his hands. Gaara looked shocked and stood, frozen for a few moments, before Mia prodded his on the nose, bringing him out of his daze.

"Aren't you going to open in? Looks like a love letter to me" Gaara blushed and handed it to Mia, who chuckled and opened it, reading the neat script on the page. It read:

_Dear Gaara-sama,_

_I'm sure you probably don't know who I am,_

_But I know of you, you're very handsome, and everytime I think of you my heart skips a beat,_

_I love you with all of my heart,_

_Kagura xxx_

Mia grinned as she read the words out, latching herself onto the blushing boy's arm, as he dragged the two of them along, desperately trying to ignore her. "Did you not like the letter?" Gaara raised an eyebrow at her, obviously questioning her sanity. Mia just winked, pushing through the door, breathing in the smell of food.

She sauntered into the kitchen, leaning over Temari's shoulder to peek into the pot, nodding her approval. She tossed the letter next to Temari casually, ignoring Gaara's glare, instead sitting on the same stool she had as before, sniggering when Temari eyed the letter, trying to not look to interested.

Suddenly the door opened and Lee and Kankuro walked in, laughing as if they were best buds. They eyed Mia and Gaara, who were sitting next to eachother, as if there had been no issue to begin with. Temari pulled up five bowls, pouring en equal amount of soup and dumplings into each, before getting Kankuro to hand out cutlery. Lee insisted he do something and galloped around, collecting cups and water for them to have with their meal.

The conversation was light, and they laughed and joked about things, including Gaara's many not-so-secret admirers. Soon the bowls were empty, and everyone had a content glow about them.

"I wonder if they found Sasuke, then" Everyone nodded, and stood, placing their dishes in the sink, and heading off to the family room. "I'm sleepy, I'm going for a kip, where am I staying?"

Temari stood, beckoning for Mia to follow her up the marble staircase, down a few corridors and to a set of double doors. "This will be your room, Gaara is to your left and Lee is to your right, Me and Kankuro are around the corner if you need us" yawning, she nodded, flopping down onto the huge master bed.

Temari left, closing the door after her, leaving Mia to her own devices. She stripped, before throwing on some shorts and a camisole, and clambering into bed, almost instantly falling asleep.


	19. Moonlit Moments

**Chapter 19 - Moonlit Moments**

Groaning Mia stretched under the blanket, lazily slouching into a sitting position, she huffed when she saw the clock, she knew that going to sleep so early would have it's consequences. Sliding up and out of bed, she slipped in her shoes and a jacket, before opening the window.

The night was crisp, but still warm, and crickets could be heard, chirping loudly in a sort of harmony. Climbing out of the window, she scaled the side of the house, quickly coming to the roof. She smiled, not at all surprised when she saw the Kazekage lying peacefully on his back, staring up at the starless sky.

She walked over and plonked down next to the man, who sent her a glance, before turning his gaze back to the moon. "Just like old times, eh?" Gaara nodded, allowing her to lie next to him.

"So you still don't sleep" Gaara glanced to her, a solemn look on his face. She sighed, a soft smile on her face, she reached up and brushed her fingers over his tattoo, tracing the intricate pattern lightly, sending little shivers down the boy's spine.

"What is love?" Mia paused, a surprised look on her face, she raised an eyebrow, as if asking for a reason. "Well, all of these girls claim to love me, but they barely know me, if at all. What is love? True, meaningful love" She rolled over, so she was lying on her stomach, making it easier for them to talk face to face.

"Well, love is an emotion of strong affection between two people, and personal attachment. Love is when you can't think of being with anyone else, and you care so deeply for that person, that you would give anything up to make them safe and happy" Gaara listened intently, concentrating on Mia's face, she was gazing at the moon, thinking of everyone she loved.

They were silent for a moment, before Gaara reached up, brushing the back of his hand across her face. Mia blushed and looked at Gaara, who stared at her, as he leaned up, holding onto the back of her head, obviously not sure of what he was doing.

After what felt like an agonisingly long time, their lips connected, Gaara's clumsy and unsure, Mia shivered, the boy's lips had become much softer and fuller since the last time they had kissed.

Lips melded against eachother, as Gaara rolled over, so he was above Mia. Mia could tell he had no experience in this sort of thing, and darted her tongue out, gliding it over his lip, he took the initiative and slid his tongue into her open mouth, nervously rubbing against hers.

Mia had no idea why she was doing this, it just felt… right. Her hands wound up into thick red locks, that were just as soft as they looked. He became slowly more confident, his hand slid down her side, feeling the goose bumps that had popped up under her top.

They soon broke apart, Gaara panting against her neck, and his head fell against her skin. "Why?" Mia had to know, she didn't want to be left hanging on something, when she didn't know where she stood. Gaara's breathing calmed down, and he pulled his head up, to look at Mia.

"I don't know, it just felt right" Mia nodded slowly, she knew that Gaara was just as confused as to why he had kissed her, as she was. "Is this, what love is?"

Mia let out a breath, she hadn't seen that one coming. She wasn't sure what the two of them shared, but she knew that they were, at the very least, very good friends, once again. "I don't know"

Lara, Naruto, Sasuke, Santana and Sakura sat in Tsunade's office, watching as they woman's expression changed from utter disbelief, to anger. "Well, so you thought you could waltz in as if nothing was wrong?" Sasuke sighed, and slouched further back into the seat.

"Not at all, I respect your decision, but I mean no harm to Konoha or it's residents. Orochimaru did things that I won't forget, I just wish to come back" Tsunade nodded slowly, as if not believing what he was saying. Naruto was getting fidgety.

"Sasuke Uchiha, by the power invested in me, I hear by re-enforce your position as a shinobi of Konoha, though you will be placed under house arrest for 6 weeks, to prove that you are serious about this. You may pick your watchers, so long as they are ok with it"

Sasuke nodded and stood, bowing slightly at the frowning Hokage, she wasn't sure about his motives, but Naruto looked so pleased to see him, that if she said no she would fear that he would be crushed.

As they exited the tower, Sasuke turned to them. "Well I don't want her" He glared at Santana who shrugged, looking quite pleased that she did not have to look after the Uchiha. "I don't mind the rest of you" Naruto grinned, slinging his arm around Sakura's shoulder. She giggled and wrapped an arm around his waist.

"right, well if it's ok with the lovely ladies, we'll rota. Who wants to go first?" They all looked between eachother, Lara sighed, grabbing Sasuke by the arm, she had seen the love in the eyes of the other two, and obviously they weren't in the mood to watch over a moody Uchiha.

"C'mon then, let's get this over with. One of you be at his place by tomorrow noon" They nodded, not really paying too much attention to the blonde. Sasuke smirked at her, shrugging, faking innocence. Lara rolled her eyes and began walking, bidding her goodbyes to the others.

The walk was quite short, and the pair ignored the curious, loving or horrified stares as people noticed Sasuke walking casually down the streets of Konoha. No doubt Tsunade would be facing a lot of grief for her decision, there was probably going to be many arguments caused by the suddenly return.

Coming up to the Uchiha mansion doors, they quickened their pace, sensing the rain about to fall. The pair were soon inside and Lara was preparing a tea for them, her mind wandered to Mia and Lee, they were only in the Sand because Sasuke had been sighted.

She chuckled at the thought of Mia's face when she would have had to meet with the Kazekage. Lara had no doubt in her mind that the two would bicker a bit over their loss of friendship, but soon regain in and act as if nothing had ever come between them. Lara didn't know just how right she was.

She shook her head and jabbed her elbow out when she felt Sasuke creep up behind her, his arms resting either side of her hips on the counter she was working on.

"Sasuke, get off" She heard a soft snort, but he didn't move.

"I'm not touching you" rolling her eyes, she tried to get to the stove, but his arms blocked her way. She saw him smirk and lean in, nuzzling against the crook of her neck.

"Sasuke, you better back the hell off if you want to have children with anybody" an eyebrow was raised, but the man stepped away, sitting himself at the dining table. Lara sighed deeply, setting the curry one to boil for half an hour. "We'll have to wait now, so what do you want to do?"

"Check mate" Sasuke stared at the board, and almost unbelieving look in his eyes. "What? Surprised that a girl can beat an Uchiha at something so simple as chess?" The Uchiha huffed, standing, silently declaring the game over. "Spoil sport"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, and walked over, throwing the kunoichi over his shoulder. "What the hell Uchiha? Do you have a fetish for carrying me around?"

"I just can't be bothered to ask or tell you where we are going" sighing, she gave up, relaxing against the muscular form of the older boy. She groaned and punched the Uchiha's back, when he walked into his bedroom as if he wasn't carrying her over his shoulder.

"Sasuke, how many times do I have to tell you, I'm not going to have sex with you" Sasuke scoffed and threw her onto the bed, stripping himself of his shoes and shirt.

"I'm tired, and you can't leave me alone, so I'm going to sleep, I suggest you do the same" Lara raised an eyebrow, but nodded climbing under the blanket, snuggling in. She felt the bed behind her dip a bit, before the weight evened out. She thought that the Uchiha was actually going to keep his distance, but after 10 minutes a hand draped itself over her waist, and a body moulded against hers.

"Night Sasuke" she heard something being mumbled behind her and she smiled, Sasuke wasn't so bad once you got to know him.

Before she knew it, she had fallen asleep, in the possessive arms of the man behind her.


	20. Good Morning

**Chapter 20 – Good Morning**

Lara let out a long breath, cracking open an eye, she could hear soft snoring from behind her. She raised an eyebrow and smiled, when she saw Sasuke drooling, his arm draped over her as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

She carefully lifted his hand, placing it next to him, so she could slide out easily. Sitting up, she stretched, slipping out of the bed, feeling the cold of the wood through her feet. A groan sounded from the bed, she turned to see Sasuke rubbing his eyes, looking sleepily up at her.

"Good Morning" Sasuke dropped his head back onto the pillow, waving his hand at her, beckoning her over. She walked over, leaning slightly over the bed. "What?"

A hand reached up and pulled her onto the bed, Sasuke smirked and snuggled closer to her. "Night, Night" Lara rolled her eyes, and pulled Sasuke off of the bed, smirking when he landed with a thump on the floor. He glared up at her, before giving in and standing. "What was that for?"

"Someone will be coming soon to take over, I at least want you fed, before they come" Sasuke nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. "Go take a shower, I'll heat you up some soup"

She heard him mumble something, but went anyway, slamming the bathroom door after him. She sauntered into the kitchen, looking at the clock, they had 2 hours until someone would come to take over. She was going to write to Mia today, she was desperate to know how things were going, and inform her of Sasuke's miraculous return.

Absently grabbing the left over soup out of the fridge, she poured two portions into a pan, and put it on the hob, gently warming it through. She soon heard the shower turn off, and spooned the red liquid into two bowls, placing them on the table, along with spoons.

She heard footsteps approaching, while she grabbed two cups, filling Sasuke's with water, and her's with apple juice. She smiled at Sasuke, who quickly took his place infront of his bowl, wasting no time in spooning the hot liquid into his mouth.

He made a noise of approval, making Lara chuckle, this was going to be a long day. She could feel it.

Santana hummed as she fried some bacon in a pan, two slices of bread next to the cooker, ready to have bacon and ketchup inbetween them.

She didn't hear the approaching person, and jumped when a hand reached past her to get a glass. She jumped in shock, and the side of her hand to touch the boiling pan. She cursed and dropped the pan back onto the hob, waving her hand in the air, before turning the heat off.

She rushed over to the sink, flooding her hand with freezing water. "Are you OK? I didn't mean to scare you" She turned to glare at Neji, who had an amused look in his eyes, but they soon showed concern and he advance over to her, inspecting her hand.

"Not really no, thanks to you" Neji ignored her and brought the burn to his lips, gently pressing them against it, watching as Santana rolled her eyes, and pulled her hand away. "I'm not a baby Neji" He shook his head and filled the glass with some iced tea.

"Would you like a drink?" Santana nodded, and quickly placed the bacon on the bread, pointing at the pot of coffee that sat on the counter. Neji quickly made work of the hot drink, before walking over and sitting opposite the kunoichi, placing the mug infront of her.

"Thanks" He nodded, sipping his drink, watching as Santana wolfed down the sandwich, winking at Neji, before picking up her mug and heading to the back door, slipping her shoes on. Neji followed, interested as to just where she planned on going with a mug of hot coffee.

She sat down on one of the benches looking out into the beautiful garden, that was slowly withering away as it neared winter. Neji took his seat next to her, glancing over when she leaned into him, winding her arm through his, before holding back onto her mug.

They sat for a while, until the coffee was gone, and the chill got under their clothes. So instead they hurried back inside, sitting infront of the TV. "We are not watching some Rom-Com"

Santana glared at Neji and threw the remote at him in a huff, he easily caught it, turning it over to a documentary about some animal. Santana wasn't really paying much attention, instead choosing to read a magazine that had been left lying around on the coffee table.

She lay down, resting her head in Neji's lap. He said nothing, and before he realised it, he was running his hand through her hair, casually playing with stray strands, twisting them around his fingers.

Mia yawned and flailed an arm around, when something tried to shake her awake. She managed to smack whoever it was, but she soon found herself being carried out of the room, in her shorts and a t-shirt. She groaned as he head lolled around.

She finally opened her eyes when they started on the stairs, Gaara looked blankly on, a bored expression on his face. He glanced down at her, watching as she smiled nervously, and waved.

They soon reached the kitchen, where Temari sat, eating some cereal. Lee and Kankuro where eating a range of cheeses and breads, talking animatedly about some new style of attack they had been practising. They raised their eyebrows when Mia was carried in.

"Is there a reason why you're carrying Mia?" Gaara shrugged and let the girl get down, before taking a bit of cheese off the platter. Mia got herself a bowl of cereal, listening intently to the conversations going on around her.

"Oh! By the way Mia, you've got mail, so do you Gaara" The two nodded and took their respective envelopes, each opening their own. Mia grinned when she saw who it was from, it read:

_Dear Mia,_

_Why haven't you written?_

_Oh well, I'm doing it now anyway. I've got great and slightly bizarre news!_

_Sasuke is back, he was waiting for us to find him in the forests around the village, I found him before everyone else. I'm also pretty sure he wants me to bare his kids, but I told him no…_

_Though he is under house arrest for a while, and (surprise, surprise) he chose me as one of his watchers. _

_Let me know what's going on with you ASAP! _

_Lots of Love,_

_Lara x_

Mia smiled softly, typical Lara to be impatient. She was surprised at Sasuke's actions, and if he planned on taking advantage of Lara, he would have her to answer for. She folded the letter, and placed it on the table infront of her, leaning onto the counter.

She assumed that the letter to Gaara, was also about the Uchiha, but that meant that she would be needing to return with Lee to Konoha soon. Gaara's eyes scanned the page, quickly taking it whatever was written on it. He placed it down, not saying a thing before pushing it in Mia's direction. She took it and scanned the page, seeing that Tsunade had said we could return whenever we wanted.

Mia nodded, placing it back down. There was something in Gaara's eyes that she didn't recognise, he was gazing at her, and almost sad expression on his face. They had just renewed their friendship, and now she had to leave again, though she prayed things wouldn't just fall back to what they were.

"Well I guess we better get packing then" Lee nodded and saluted the sand trio, before bouncing out of the room, Mia following at a much calmer pace.

She made quick work of the packing, throwing everything she had brought, back into the bag. She was going to miss her walks with the Kazekage, she smiled to herself, promising to keep in touch with him.

They walked down the stairs together, meeting the siblings at the door of their house. "I'm going to miss you two, take care, and feel free to drop by anytime!" Temari gave Lee and Mia a hug, before Kankuro fist bumped with them. Gaara nodded at them, before walking them to the gates. Lee grinned at the sun, and Mia made use of his distraction, pulling Gaara down into a quick kiss.

Gaara was utterly shocked, a dumb look on his face when Lee turned around again. "Lee go on, meet Cynder at the forest" Lee nodded, understanding that they wanted to speak alone, he quickly advanced towards the forest, but not walking to quickly, pacing himself.

Mia turned to Gaara and smiled, hugging the older boy, she felt hesitant arms wrap around her. "I'll visit, I promise" Gaara nodded, and let go, allowing her to step back. She ran a hand through his hair, leaning up to kiss his tattoo.

He smiled, one of his rare smiles, watching her with interest. "Bye Gaara" He nodded and stepped backwards towards the village, watching the girl's figure grow smaller and smaller into the distance before he couldn't see her at all.

Looking to the sky, he sighed. He wasn't sure if things were going to be the same around Suna, now that his best friend was gone… again.


	21. Stolen

**Chapter 21 – Stolen**

Mia smiled as she approached Lee, he was leaning against a large tree at the edge of the forest, glancing around the sky. Mia frowned and glanced around too, Cynder should have been here already, unless someone else had collared her for something more important.

"Hey Lee, looks like Cynder isn't coming, I guess we're going by foot" Lee nodded, and saluted, before joining Mia as they sauntered into the overgrowth, neither in any hurry to return. "Well, that was a surprisingly good trip, once we got over the initial awkwardness, it made me remember why we became friends"

Lee grinned and nodded, intently listening, as if it was the most interesting thing in the world, that was what Mia loved about Lee. She was sure he was easily, the most genuine and happy person she knew, and in her eyes they were important qualities to have.

Suddenly rustling in the bushes behind them, silenced their conversation. They looked at eachother, faked a smile and carried on walking, waiting to assess the situation further. But before they could do anything, the pair felt needles lodge themselves into the junction of their necks, and soon they blacked out, landing with a thump onto the forest floor.

Groaning Mia sat up, her eyes slowly adjusting to the extreme darkness in the room, there was no light, natural or artificial. She glanced around, seeing that she was in a large cage, Lee in one next to her, still passed out on the cold metal. She pushed herself up, rubbing her neck, feeling that she had begun healing, before heading over to the bars of the cage.

They were sturdy and chakra infused, meaning that there was little chance or her escaping on her own. She once again looked to Lee and sighed, they were in a small room, with no one else in it. "Lee" she called his name a few times, before the boy started to stir, glancing groggily up at her.

"What's going on?" Mia sighed and ran her hand over the bar infront of her, giving it an experimental tug.

"Looks like we got kidnapped, and I can't break out of these bars, and I doubt you can either" Lee jumped to his feet, a determined look on his face.

The door opened, allowing a sudden flow of light into the room, making Lee and Mia wince from the shock. A large scarred man stood in the door, and Mia scowled at him, he just smirked and winked at her, before waltzing over to their cages, leaning obnoxiously against the bars. "What do you want with us?"

"Well girly, Boss wants a word with the pair of ya, Konoha ninja no?" Mia looked down to her headband, wondering if the man was as stupid as he looked. "Well, anyways you'se were on a mission set by the Hokage, therefor you are with Konoha" Mia rolled her eyes, his speech already grating on her nerves.

Lee huffed and shouted some youth nonsense at the man, who raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "Anyways, you be coming with me" Mia and Lee let the man place handcuffs on them, deciding to see just where this was leading them. Mia smiled at Lee, showing him that she was not giving up so easily.

They were led down many dingy, winding corridors, before they came upon wine red oak doors, obviously leading into where this 'Boss' was. The doors were opened and a man with long silver hair was sitting his arms resting on the desk infront of him, smirking at them.

"Well children, I would like to have a lovely chat with you. Please have a seat" Mia glanced at Lee, who glared at the man, but sat anyway, Mia perched next to him, obvious distrust in her eyes. "Oh, don't be like that, I just want some information, on a few people"

"Firstly, I believe you are quite close to a certain Kazekage, no?" Mia didn't even flinch under his gaze, feeling the darkness building in the room, ready to slaughter any man attempting to hurt her. "not prepared to talk? Well we'll see how you feel in the morning with no food. Or perhaps you would like to tell us about Sasuke Uchiha?"

When the pair remained silent, the man frowned, his happy demeanour now gone, as his eyes turned to steel, telling the guards to lock them back up. They were thrown back into their cells, and left alone in the pitch-black, with no food or water, their enemies were obviously trying to starve them into talking, but neither of them was going to crack.

"Hey Lee, how you doing?" Lee grinned at his friend and gave her thumbs up, signalling he was doing ok. It had been 5 hours since their last visit, and they were beginning to get tired.

"What are we going to do, they aren't going to let us out" Mia sighed, knowing that her friend was right, but she for once had no idea what she was going to do. The door opened once again, but this time it was the still unnamed 'Boss', walked through the door, a scowl on his face.

"When will you brats learn? Just speak and we'll let you go!" Mia hissed and spat at the man, watching as his eyes blazed with fury. "Fine! Kill them!" Lee's eyes widened and he started struggling, Mia's heart was pounding, either her Father would have to come and save them, or they were actually going to die.

She gasped and looked to Lee when darkness swirled outside of the cages, creating a mini tornado, dropping the temperature rapidly. "What is the meaning of this?" Lee's eyes practically fell out of his head, when Death fully appeared, in all his cloaked glory, scythe in bony hand.

The figure looked at Mia and nodded, his face hidden by the hood of his cloak, before turning to men in the room who were shaking but looked as if they were actually going to try and attack him. Death took what looked like a deep breath, and soon the souls of the very men who had been standing there, were being sucked towards the towering figure.

Lee was whimpering slightly, not quite registering just what was going on infront of him. The bodies fell limp, hitting the ground with a dull thump, lifeless and cold. The mysterious figure turned to Mia and Lee, slashing their cages and dissolving part of the wall, creating an easy escape route for both of them.

"Thanks Dad" Lee paled even further, and turned to stare unbelieving at his friend, who he thought he knew a lot about, obviously he was quite wrong. The figure nodded and departed back into the tornado of darkness, leaving an awkward silence between the two. "Can we talk later, I promise I'll answer anything you want"

Lee nodded and slid out of the cage following Mia out of the building, and over the fields, quickly trying to make it across to the forest. They made it and rested against a tree, desperately trying to ignore the burning hunger that rippled through them. They had to return to Konoha and report their news ASAP, or else they might sent out a search party.

The pair jumped side by side back towards the leafy village, sighing in relief when they saw the village looming in the distance. They heard a commotion at the gates, and soon saw everyone arguing at the gate, even Tsunade was standing there looking rather flustered.

When Lara and Santana saw them, they squealed and ran over , embracing their teammate, before quickly hugging Lee. "What happened?" Mia sighed and shook her head, glancing at Sasuke, who glared back at her.

"Can I just get some food, they starved us for a while" Everyone nodded, and soon they were in the BBQ restaurant again, each chatting happily, the days drama forgotten.


	22. Promises

**Chapter 22 – Promises**

Mia groaned as she sat up, she was in one of the Hyuuga's spare rooms, opposite Lara and Santana's. Her head was hurting her, and she was feeling a bit under the weather, from the lack of feeding the day before. She was just praying that she didn't get sick, but her Father wouldn't let her die because of it, so there wasn't that much of a worry, it just wasn't very pleasant being ill.

She swung her legs over the bed, and made herself stand, but soon found herself back on the bed, her head was spinning and her stomach lurched. Mia's eyes widened, and she quickly moved into the adjoined bathroom, falling into walls as she went, she reached the toilet just in time.

After she had emptied her stomach, she crawled to the sink, washing her mouth out, before resting against the wall, before slumping back onto the floor, her head between her knees. There was a timid knock on the door, and she sighed. "Come in"

The door opened, and Mia could sense the quiet shuffle of feat approaching the door. Hinata soon appeared, a look of concern on her face, the Hyuuga rushed over and helped Mia back onto her bed. "A-Are you ok, M-Mia-san?" Mia nodded and lay back, rubbing her throbbing head, as if it would make the pain go away. "I w-will get Sakura-chan t-to c-come here, she I-Is trained as a-a medic"

Mia just nodded and rolled over, listening as the door opened and closed once again, leaving her alone, in the silence of the room.

She must have only been waiting about ten minutes before Hinata and Sakura appeared beside her, Sakura sticking a thermometer in her mouth, and placing a wet flannel on her forehead. Sakura frowned at her temperature and reached into her bag pulling out a bottle of bluish liquid, and a pack of pills.

"Now, the liquid is cold and flu remedy, take one spoonful every three hours, 3 times a day. The Pills are pain relief and anti-sickness, take one of each every 4 hours, 3 times a day. If these don't make you better, nothing will" Mia nodded and took the medication, before swallowing them, grimacing at the sour taste of the liquid.

"Rest for a while, and you should be better in no time, oh and by the way, Lee is on his way to see you" Mia frowned but said nothing, she knew that they would have to talk at some point, but she was debating whether to just gather everyone around and tell them all.

They were all bound to find out at some point, and Mia was getting tired of the questions. "Sakura" the girl paused at her door. "Gather everyone here, I have something important to share with all of you, a secret I have been keeping from you all since the first the first time we met"

Sakura nodded, a bit taken a back, and left, letting Mia mentally prepare herself for what was to come. She closed her eyes, recalling the stories and images she had been shown of that day. The day she died.

When the door opened again, she cracked an eye open, and saw everyone file in, minus the sand trio. Sasuke made a point of sitting rather close to Lara who rolled her eyes and ignored him. "So, now that everyone is here, I guess I better get started. Santana, Lara I'm pretty sure you know the story I'm about tell"

They nodded, but looked dubious, they obviously had no clue what was going through Mia's head. "A lot of you have heard me talking about me Father, and since Lee actually met him yesterday, I think I owe you all an explanation" Lara and Santana's eyes bulged.

"Even we haven't met him, crickey Moses, did you pass out?" Lee looked a bit scared but shook his head.

"Anyway, to put it simply, the Father I'm talking about, has many names, Death, the Grim Reaper…" Eyes started to dart around, confusion and fear in them. "Yes, my 'Father' is Death. Well I guess I should tell you how it all started, no?"

"make yourselves comfy, this may take a while" Mia shuffled into a sitting position, and smiled at everyone as if she hadn't just declared something almost terrifying. "It all started, in Forkland hospital, many years ago…"

"_Daisuke, love? We need to get to the hospital, she's coming" A tall woman, with long black hair, was cradling her swollen stomach, feeling a kick come from the lump. A man rushed in, his red hair sticking up in random spikes._

_The pair rushed to the hospital, and soon Ayumi was groaning, lying on a hospital bed, being wheeled toward an empty room. _

_She groaned, and flopped back, feeling another contraction wrack through her, but suddenly, panic filled the room. Doctors, and nurses swarmed around her, talking in hushed voices, while glancing around fearfully. "What's wrong?"_

_They all looked solemnly at her, and one stepped forward, as the final contraction came, whatever he was about to say was cut short, as the pain finally stopped, as her daughter was born, or so she thought. There was no movement, no cry coming from the baby._

"_I'm so sorry Mrs. Thermador, your baby was a stillborn" silence filled the room, as the words wrung in her ears. Suddenly she felt sick, and lurched over the bed, vomiting into a waiting bucket. The doctors filed out, leaving the midwife, Daisuke and Ayumi to be alone._

_Just as the midwife was about to remove the pale child, a thick tornado of darkness filled the room, and when it cleared, a tall, hooded figure loomed over them. His hands were nothing but bone, one of them grasping at a scythe. "Who are you?"_

"_I am Death… I am here for the child, she is compatible with the darkness, the previous wielder has just passed on. If the world is to remain in balance, give me the child, she will live on, and I shall forever protect her, until natural death, she will see no serious illness"_

_Ayumi choked back tears, and looked to Daisuke, who looked solemn, but a look of guilt and understanding was on his face. He slowly nodded, and grasped Ayumi's hand, before smiling slowly, and looking to the baby that was supposed to be the light of their life._

_Ayumi broke down, as Death glided over, and took the baby, taking no more time than needed in the room, before he returned to wherever he had come from._

There was silence amongst the bedroom, as the shocking information settled in. "My biological parent's died when I was 4, in a mass murder, though I was still living in the Amazon then anyways. But if it wasn't for my father, then I wouldn't even be here right now, I wouldn't have saved the people I did, so in a way, it was a blessing"

No one seemed to know what to say, and Mia sighed, she wasn't expecting them to accept it straight away, so she told them they could leave, she was wanting to go for a walk anyway. Everyone slowly left, and Mia pulled herself out of bed, and stood, stretching.

She had felt good now that it was off her chest, but she was unsure as to what their reactions would be, and the cool air was refreshing. She smiled and walked into the town square, watching as the kids giggled and ran around, playing tag with eachother.

She let out a small gasp when she saw a familiar head of red hair walking towards her in the crowd. Gaara.

**AN: YAY! I'm so glad this is nearly done, I'm thinking of maybe making the next chapter the last one, what do you think?**


	23. I Love You

**Chapter 23 – I Love You**

**Sorry, this is a really short one, couldn't find anything to fill it up with… One more chapter after this!**

Mia watched as Gaara approached her, a small smile on his face. She grinned back at him, and he stopped just infront of her, before tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Hello again, that was quick wasn't it?" Gaara nodded slowly, and held his hand out for Mia to take.

They walked hand in hand towards the Hokage mountain, Gaara's meeting being later on in the day. "So how have you been since I last saw you?" Mia glanced up at Gaara, before the two started their climb up the cliff face.

"Good, not much has happened. I heard you had a run in on the way back here, are you ok?" Mia smiled and nodded, everyone had commented on how talkative Gaara was around her and only her. She just brushed it aside, but inside, she felt proud that he could talk freely to her.

They sat atop one of the heads, and stared at the bustling city below, a comfortable silence between them. Mia leaned into Gaara as a chill blew past them, the red head froze for a second, before bringing an arm to rest on Mia's shoulder, if anyone saw this they would surely assume there was something going on between the pair.

Gaara turned to stare intently into Mia's eyes, and her pulse quickened at the seriousness of his gaze. "I'm lonely without you" her mouth opened and closed again, as her brain tried to comprehend something to say. "I love you, Mia"

Time seemed to stand still, and the noises that were previously potent, disappeared into background noise. Mia reached a shaky hand up to the tattoo that adorned the pale forehead, and traced the design lightly. "I love you too, Kazekage-sama"

Gaara smiled softly, and reached around to hold Mia's head, as he leant in, joining their lips in a soft embrace. They stayed still for a few moments, sharing a silent emotion between them. When he pulled back, he frowned, and let his hand drop. "live with me, I need you with me"

She had been anticipating these words, but was dreading them, she wanted to be with the red head, more than anything, but she was loyal to her friends, and the people of the amazon. But no, this was her life, and she was going to live it as she please. "I will" Gaara's smile grew and soon she was pulled into his lap, as they sat cuddling in the sun.

"you need to go to your meeting now, come on" Gaara sighed, and allowed Mia to stand, before grasping her hand, as they walked down the mountain. Neither had said anything about dating, but nothing was needed, enough had been said to understand that they were in a serious relationship.

Mia waited in the reception, for 20 minutes, as the meeting went on, she had promised Gaara that she would be here when he came out.

She glanced up, as Lara and Santana walked in, grinning as they saw her. They each sat on one of her sides, sighing contently as the heating hit them. "So Mia how was your little bonding session then?"

"I'm going to live in Suna, with Gaara" silence fell amongst them at the statement, the pair were shocked. "I love him, and he loves me to, I am serious about this guys, no matter what anyone says, I'm going" they nodded, smiles returning.

"Sasuke won't leave me alone about the whole 'bare my children' thing. It's quite amusing actually, and yes like you, I am also thinking of staying here, though I feel bad now that more than one of us is leaving the Amazons" Lara said, scratching the back of her head.

Santana startled laughing, and sighed happily. "Well shoot me, so am I" the three started laughing, but it soon died down, as they were faced with the task of writing the dreaded letter. "Me and Lara will write it, here comes Gaara, have fun" Santana winked, and pulled Lara out of the tower.

Soon, Gaara stood beside her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She leaned back into his chest, and smiled at the children running around outside, playing Ninja. "you all done?" he nodded, and soon they were heading towards the Hyuuga mansion.

Mia couldn't get over the fact that she was growing up, and moving out, like a bird from it's nest, she was free and happy, living a life with the person she loved.

Soon her bags were packed, and they stood, at the entrance to Konoha, wishing their friends goodbye. Lara and Santana tackled Mia, sharing one last laugh, before the new couple set off, back towards Suna, her new home.

Gaara opened his front door, and stepped aside, to let Mia in first, Kankuro and Temari were both on missions, so the house was empty apart from them. "Would you like your old room back?" Mia smiled and nodded, she wasn't sure whether jumping into the same room as Gaara would give off a good impression.

They shared a brief kiss, before she was unpacking all of her things, this room was really beginning to resemble her. She heard a cry outside of her window, smiling she ran over and stuck her head out, Cynder swooped around the sky, being marvelled by the villagers. "Show off"

Mia shook her head, and flopped backward onto the bed, sighing, this had been one heck of a journey for her.


	24. Epilogue

**Chapter 24 – Epilogue**

Mia yawned and stretched, lying face down on the bed. She smiled when a hand traced shapes on her back, and rolled over so they were cuddling. "Good morning Gaara" sleepy green eyes crinkled slightly, as a small smile found its way onto his face.

"Morning Love, how are you feeling?" Mia smiled and hummed happily, before sitting up, and glancing around. Three solid years had passed, and now they were all around 20, Adults, rather than teenagers. Their relationship was growing strong, and the love that radiated between the two had been commented on by many, and the villagers noticed the difference in mood in their Kazekage.

"I'm good, don't you have a meeting today?" She ran a hand through Gaara's messy red hair, earning a soft sigh from the man. He said nothing, but slowly stood, and slouched off towards the bathroom, no doubt to scrub up, before his meeting with the village elders, to discuss stock and money.

Mia lay back down, and snuggled into the silk blanket, smirking smugly at her boyfriend when he returned, she loved the lie-ins she got to have. "Have a good day at work" he rolled his eyes, and left the house, feeling more nervous that he had ever before.

Today was the day, and he was nearly passing out from the pressure.

~~Sasuke and Lara~~

Lara was standing next to the stove, cooking Sasuke some bacon and eggs. She was happy with the life they had created, she glanced from the ring on her finger, to the large lump that was her stomach. They had twins on the way, two boys, after being married for 6 months.

She smiled when she felt a soft kiss being planted on the back of her neck. "Good morning Husband" She heard a chuckle come from behind her, and large hands caressed the baby bump lovingly.

Breakfast was soon plated, and the pair sat in comfortable silence, watching as the sun rose fully in Konoha. She winced slightly when a sharp kick hit her stomach. "Be gentle down there" she soothed the belly, and sipped at her herbal tea.

"they'll be coming in a month, when are we going to go shopping?" Sasuke sighed at the question, it was the question he had been dreading, he hated shopping at the best of times. "Fine, I'll ask Santana, but don't complain about how much I'm spending, our boys deserve the best"

Standing, she sauntered over to the phone, arranging times to go shopping. Sasuke smiled to himself, he couldn't have picked a better woman, but that did mean he had to deal with Santana, the pair of them bickered like children, much to Neji and Lara's dismay.

"What's your plans for today then?" Sasuke shrugged and finished off his food, giving Lara a quick kiss, before jogging upstairs, no doubt to have a shower before any possible mission could occur. Lara sighed and leaned against the table, thinking back to when Sasuke had tried to persuade her to go on a date with him, a week after he had returned to Konoha.

_Mia had just left for Suna, and Lara was missing her already, it was like the three musketeers was down to two, it just wasn't right._

_She walked slowly back in, deciding to walk through the town. It wasn't long before she had bumped into Sasuke, who had his usual flirty smirk on, apparently he only did it around her, but she had never taken the time to notice. "What do you want Uchiha?"_

_He said nothing and began walking along-side her, brushing the back of his hand against her's, every now and again. After a few more minutes of unsure silence, Sasuke finally spoke up, as he leant against the wall next to where Lara was told to wait for Santana._

"_I think you should go on a date with me" Lara raised an eyebrow, before shaking her head, he couldn't be serious. "Just one, that's all I'm asking for, wherever you want. Look I don't do this for just everyone" Lara snorted and pushed off the wall, when Santana came into sight._

"_No, just possible baby carriers" Sasuke rolled his eyes and grabbed her hand, making her look at him. Santana stopped at the fountain obviously taking the hint._

"_just one date" Lara sighed and nodded, frowning as the smirk returned. Sasuke let go, winked at her and walked away, casually throwing a 'I'll call you' over his shoulder as he went. That man was crazy._

Lara smiled to herself, it was the best damn date she'd ever been on, even if she hadn't admitted it so Sasuke at the time. He wasn't the soulless bastard everyone thought he was, even if she did end up pregnant with his children, she loved him, and would happily rebuild his clan with him any day.

~~Santana and Neji~~

Santana groaned and kicked the person trying to wake her, it was a Saturday for crying out loud!

"Stop it, you need to get up, we have a mission today" she ignored Neji as he pulled the duvet off her, and continued to lie there as if nothing had changed. She yelped in surprise when she was picked up and dumped in the bathroom, a hot shower running, ready for her to jump into.

She smiled at the pre-prepared shower. "Have I ever told you that you're an awesome boyfriend?"

Neji scoffed and walked out, closing the door after him. Santana couldn't really remember how they got together, it wasn't a formal event, she was sure neither really asked the other either. It just kind of… happened. Shrugging, she pulled herself into the shower, after stripping, and let the warm water wash away the sleepiness she felt.

Apparently today's mission was quite a big one, and required good teamwork and stealth, so why her and Lee were chose, was beyond her, but obviously Tsunade trusted them enough to send them, and for that she was grateful.

She had also agreed to go baby shopping with Lara the day after she was due back, because Sasuke didn't want to see so much pink stuff, and children in one place. How he ever thought he was going to survive lots of crying and pooping was beyond everyone, including him.

Soon Santana found herself standing in the Hokage's office along-side Neji, Lee and Tenten. They had just been briefed about the mission, and were about to be set on their way. "good luck"

With that they dispersed heading towards the gates, Neji with Santana. They stopped to stare around, waiting for their teammates to arrive. "Stay safe out there" Neji rolled his eyes and gave Santana a kiss, before patting her head.

This was going to be a long, but good mission.

~~Mia and Gaara~~

"I'm back" Mia looked up from her book, and smiled, as Gaara dumped his briefcase and came and sat next to her, glancing at the book over her shoulder.

"How'd it go, you look stressed" Mia ran a hand loving through Gaara's hair, he just shook his head and held her hand, before standing up. He motioned for her to come with him, she gave him a curious look, but followed nonetheless. She chuckled when a hand covered her eyes, and she felt sand swirl around them.

After a moment, the hand was removed, she opened her eyes and sighed. Gaara had placed a picnic on their favourite hill. "This is lovely"

Gaara smiled softly and sat, pulling out the food he knew Mia loved most. They sat for what felt like ages, just talking and eating, it was pleasant outside, and the sun was starting to set, casting a yellow hue over the pair.

Gaara stood, and Mia followed suit, expecting to just go back to their house. She gasped when Gaara got down on one knee, and gazed up at her with a hint of fear in his eyes. Fear of rejection, as he pulled out a little black box. It held a stunning gold ring, with an emerald in the centre. Mia started crying, she had been waiting so long for this day, and she was ecstatic, she just wanted to hear the words.

"Marry me?"

**THE END! Omg, it took so long… I might make a sequel if I get enough requests for it. I cant believe it's over, seems strange. Hope you enjoyed it.**


	25. Story Requests?

**Story request?**

I was wondering if there was a certain pairing any of you wanted me to do now that Mutual Feelings is finished…

Either Yaoi, or a character x an OC. No SasuSaku.

Thanks guys!


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